Since Tversky argued that similarity judgments violate the three metric axioms, asymmetrical similarity judgments have been particularly challenging for standard, geometric models of similarity, such as multidimensional scaling. According to Tversky, asymmetrical similarity judgments are driven by differences in salience or extent of knowledge. However, the notion of salience has been difficult to operationalize, especially for perceptual stimuli for which there are no apparent differences in extent of knowledge. To investigate similarity judgments between perceptual (...) stimuli, across three experiments, we collected data where individuals would rate the similarity of a pair of temporally separated color patches. We identified several violations of symmetry in the empirical results, which the conventional multidimensional scaling model cannot readily capture. Pothos et al. proposed a quantum geometric model of similarity to account for Tversky's findings. In the present work, we extended this model to a more general framework that can be fit to similarity judgments. We fitted several variants of quantum and multidimensional scaling models to the behavioral data and concluded in favor of the quantum approach. Without further modifications of the model, the best-fit quantum model additionally predicted violations of the triangle inequality that we observed in the same data. Overall, by offering a different form of geometric representation, the quantum geometric framework of similarity provides a viable alternative to multidimensional scaling for modeling similarity judgments, while still allowing a convenient, spatial illustration of similarity. (shrink)

There are cases where many think it would have been better for some child never to have been born. We can imagine a life characterized exclusively by suffering, never containing even the briefest moment of pleasure. The life goes exceedingly poorly – so poorly, we think, that it would have been better for the child never to have been. However, most of us think that many lives are not of this sort. Many lives are at least all right: the good (...) moments outweigh the bad, and so it’s not better for those people never to have been born.David Benatar offers a compelling and challenging argument against this common view.See David Benatar [1]. He endorses anti-natalism, which is the view that there’s always a pro tanto moral reason, grounded in the interests of a potential child, against creating the child because it’s always better for the child never to have been born.As will be mentioned in note 13, there is strictly speaking a qualification: if one’s life contains no pains at all, then it’s .. (shrink)

In this study, we investigate the conceptual structure of the metaphor “SIMILARITY IS PROXIMITY.” The results of four experiments suggest a tight mental link between similarity and proximity. Two experiments revealed that people judge entities to be more similar to each other when they are placed closely in space, while two other experiments showed that entities are judged to be closer to each other when they are thought to be more similar. We discuss this bidirectional metaphor transfer effect in light (...) of approaches to metaphor understanding, including the long-standing view that metaphorical mappings are assumed to be asymmetrical. We also consider the implications of this bi-directional mapping for high level cognition. (shrink)

An unwanted thought appears to be cued easily by reminders in the environment but often the thought itself seems to cue nothing more than the desire to eliminate it from consciousness. This unusual asymmetry in the way unwanted thoughts are linked to other thoughts was the focus of the present research. Participants who were asked to suppress a thought or to concentrate on it completed a task assessing the influence of priming on reaction time for word/non-word judgments. Results revealed (...) that suppression under cognitive load produced asymmetric priming: Priming with the associate of a suppressed word speeded RT for the suppressed word, but priming with a suppressed word did not speed RT for associated words. These findings suggest that thought suppression induces an unusual form of cognitive accessibility in which movement of activation toward the suppressed thought from associates is facilitated but movement of activation away from the suppressed thought to associates is undermined. (shrink)

Research has consistently shown that people consider harmful side effects of an action more intentional than helpful side effects. This phenomenon is known as the side- effect effect (SEE), which refers to the influence of moral considerations in judgments of intentionality and other non-moral concepts. There is an ongoing debate about how to explain this asymmetric pattern of judgment and the psychological factors involved in it. It has been posited that affective reactions to agents that bring about harmful side- (...) effects could bias intentionality attributions in these cases, explaining the asymmetric pattern of intentionality judgments that we observe in the SEE. We call this the affective bias hypothesis (ABH). Evidence for the ABH is mixed, with some findings suggesting a role for affective processes, while others suggesting that affective processes play no role in the SEE. A possible explanation for these apparently contradictory results points to affective processes involved in the SEE being confined to anger. In a series of empirical studies, we systematically measured and manipulated participants’ anger in order to test this possibility. Our findings suggest that anger play no role in intentionality judgments in SEE cases, while providing support for a non-emotional motivation to blame as a factor underlying the SEE. (shrink)

To varying degrees, many of us think we are “self-made.” Some explicitly state—while others imply—that our accomplishments resulted (almost) entirely from our intelligence, ingenuity, and hard work There is qualified truth in this supposition, even although it is commonly overstated. Others think they are pawns in the chess game of life. However, although some have less control than those more privileged, few are devoid of control. This tandem of judgments is akin to our propensity to make asymmetrical (...) class='Hi'>judgments about our actions (and those we like) relative to judgments of those we dislike. We often blame our failures on something other than our ill-advised choices, limited abilities, or lack of persistence. If we receive a poor grade, do not land a desired job or coveted promotion, or are spurned by a potential lover, we often blame another, bad luck, or unfortunate circumstances. We scrounge for ways to excuse or mitigate our responsibility when things turn out badly, while taking credit when actions turn out well. We do not do same for negative traits or actions of those we dislike. The phenomenon I discuss in this paper, however, is more pervasive than blame-deflection or inappropriate pride. Even some who think the notion of the “self-made person” borders on a straw person, also think that we have considerable direct control of our lives. We do not. Although we are not leaves tossed by winds of circumstance, we are shaped by complex causal chains largely beyond our control. After seeing this broadly and in detail, we understand the limits on control and why it is not direct By understanding that and how we are shaped by cultures, governments, businesses, and others, we can isolate levers that help us maximize control we do have. (shrink)

People asymmetrically attribute various agential features such as intentionality, knowledge, or causal impact to other agents when something of normative significance is at stake. I will argue that three questions are of primary interest in the debate about this effect. A methodological question about how to explain it at all; a substantive question about how to explain it correctly: and a normative question about whether to explain it in terms of an error or a legitimate judgmental pattern. The problem, I (...) argue, is that these three questions are difficult to disentangle. I propose a solution to this problem, and show how it accounts for the most recent data regarding the effect. (shrink)

Conceptual features differ in how mentally tranformable they are. A robin that does not eat is harder to imagine than a robin that does not chirp. We argue that features are immutable to the extent that they are central in a network of dependency relations. The immutability of a feature reflects how much the internal structure of a concept depends on that feature; i.e., how much the feature contributes to the concept's coherence. Complementarily, mutability reflects the aspects in which a (...) concept is flexible. We show that features can be reliably ordered according to their mutability using tasks that require people to conceive of objects missing a feature, and that mutability (conceptual centrality) can be distinguished from category centrality and from diagnosticity and salience. We test a model of mutability based on asymmetric, unlabeled, pairwise dependency relations. With no free parameters, the model provides reasonable fits to data. Qualitative tests of the model show that mutability judgments are unaffected by the type of dependency relation and that dependency structure influences judgments of variability. (shrink)

Joshua Greene has famously argued for two distinct processes of how humans make moral judgments. Despite a lively controversy around potential normative implications of this view, less attention has been paid to those philosophical assumptions that are fundamental to Greene’s dual-process theory itself. In this paper, I argue that Greene’s dual-process theory hinges on a modular account of cognition and the brain, and I critically discuss the plausibility of Greene’s view in light of increasing popularity of dynamical systems accounts (...) in cognitive science. If we reject modularity and adopt a dynamical systems perspective instead, we can still hope to find relative differences in the functional specialization of dynamic brain networks within one interconnected system, but Greene’s original theory in terms of two asymmetrically independent processes will no longer be tenable. This imposes constraints on the kind of explanations that we can expect from an empirically informed ethics in that only non-exclusive dual-process theories would be compatible with a dynamical systems account. Ultimately, however, the controversy around the modularity of mind should not be misconceived as a purely empirical question, but rather as a matter of conflicting epistemic standards as to what qualifies as a good explanation in cognitive science. (shrink)

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek saw the liberty principle as focal and accorded it strong presumption, but their wisdom invokes how little we can know. In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein re-examines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of a Smithian spectator, real or imagined. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi from the mutual (...) coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of cooperation, he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination, and thus interprets entrepreneurship in terms of discovery or new knowledge. Beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment, emergent from tacit reaches of the "society of mind," itself embedded in actual society. Rejecting homo economicus in favor of the "deepself," Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error, and correction-and kinds of discovery-which all serve the cause of liberty. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two. Knowledge and Coordination highlights the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents. Behind economic talk of market communication and social error and correction lies Klein's Smithian allegory, with the allegorical spectator representing a conception of the social. Knowledge and Coordination instructs us to declare such allegory. Knowledge and Coordination is an authoritative take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable. (shrink)

What is the relationship between space and time in the human mind? Studies in adults show an asymmetric relationship between mental representations of these basic dimensions of experience: Representations of time depend on space more than representations of space depend on time. Here we investigated the relationship between space and time in the developing mind. Native Greek‐speaking children watched movies of two animals traveling along parallel paths for different distances or durations and judged the spatial and temporal aspects of these (...) events (e.g., Which animal went for a longer distance, or a longer time?). Results showed a reliable cross‐dimensional asymmetry. For the same stimuli, spatial information influenced temporal judgments more than temporal information influenced spatial judgments. This pattern was robust to variations in the age of the participants and the type of linguistic framing used to elicit responses. This finding demonstrates a continuity between space‐time representations in children and adults, and informs theories of analog magnitude representation. (shrink)

My thesis traces Russell's development of his theory of belief from 1913 to 1918 under the impact of his student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. ;In chapter one I focus on Russell's multiple relation theory of belief from 1910 to early 1913 and on Russell's view of perception as a relation between minds and objects. I show that, on Russell's theory, acts of believing or judging are intended to explain the different types of judgments and to account for how propositions acquire a (...) complete sense. I argue that Russell faces difficulties explaining the status of relations occurring in propositions which are believed, and that his account of how we perceive types of objects is in tension with his theory that beliefs are facts. ;In chapter two I examine Wittgenstein's influence on Russell's 1913 work, Theory of Knowledge. I argue that in Theory of Knowledge Russell responds to Wittgenstein's objections to his theory of judgment by proposing a theory of unnamable asymmetrical relations and unasserted mental relations. I further argue that Russell begins to see that, without postulating further judgments and thus entailing a vicious regress, his notion of perception cannot support an adequate account of distinctions between types of entities judged. I claim---with Sommerville and others---that Russell's "paralysis" in the face of Wittgenstein's criticisms in 1913 concerns his inability to explain judgment without explaining type distinctions and vice versa. ;In chapter three I examine the development of Russell's thought between 1914 and late 1918 in response to Wittgenstein. I suggest that in early 1918 Russell begins to accept Wittgenstein's claim that in belief-contexts, the proposition is a fact consisting of grammatical relations of words. I further claim that, unlike Wittgenstein, Russell explains all such relations by giving an account of our psychological needs and limitations. Finally I conjecture that Russell begins to be inclined to reject his relational conception of perception, and of belief as involving a subject, not only because he begins to take neutral monism more seriously, but also because of difficulties internal to his theory of perception, difficulties that Wittgenstein may have suggested to him. (shrink)

The article critically examines the project of Brian Epstein's social ontology. The authors propose to interpret a social fact as derived from the appropriate perspective of an observer carrying out a structural reconstruction of a social phenomenon and identify difficulties in the way of analyzing social facts as structurally independent of causally determining factors. The article shows that the determination and foundation of social facts cannot be understood as asymmetric, substantiates the symmetrical nature of the relationship between the determinable complex (...) fact and the ontological foundations that determine them, and suggests that the judgments describing them are equivalent, and also proves the need to involve philosophical and scientific methodology, the resources of the philosophy of language and epistemology to address the issue of the validity of projects “ontological fixation”, which the authors of the article propose to consider as a scientific classification. Understanding the ontology of the social is possible only when going beyond its limits, and any classifications can be idiosyncrasies of individual classifiers or observers, scientifically unequal and requiring epistemological evaluation. The authors note that epistemology allows us to judge the necessity or, on the contrary, artificiality of classification, and the question of the ontological basis of a social fact should be solved by analogy. Accordingly, the search for such ontological foundations is not possible without prior resolution of the epistemological problem: which classifications (fixations) of “natural” or “social species” are structurally necessary (in the sense that their macro-properties properties stem from the internal structure), and which are arbitrarily constructed by the observer, based on his idiosyncrasy or local-historical, cultural or ideological position. (shrink)

There is increasing interest in the role played by testosterone in economic decision-making and social cognition. However, despite the growing body of findings in this field of research, no empirical study to date has tested whether testosterone modulates decision-making when an asymmetrically dominated decoy option is introduced in a choice set. Within a choice set that comprises two options, an asymmetrically dominated decoy option is a third option that, when introduced in the choice set, is much worse than one of (...) the existing options, but comparable to the other existing option. Introduction of a decoy option leads to a preference toward the dominating option (i.e., decoy effect). Healthy male participants (n = 63) received a single-dose of 150 mg testosterone gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subjects design. At 180 min post-administration, participants took part in a decision-making task to elicit decoy effect. Results showed that participants in the testosterone group made less consistent choices and more target choices (i.e., decoy effect) than participants in the placebo group. These findings are interpreted in light of the dual-process theory and are in line with existing evidence suggesting that testosterone promotes more intuitive and automatic judgments in human decision-making. (shrink)

While robots were traditionally built to achieve economic efficiency and financial profits, their roles are likely to change in the future with the aim to provide social support and companionship. In this research, we examined whether the robot’s proposed function (social vs. economic) impacts judgments of mind and moral treatment. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that robots with social function were perceived to possess greater ability for emotional experience, but not cognition, compared to those with economic function and whose (...) function was not mentioned explicitly. Study 2 replicated this finding and further showed that low economic value reduced ascriptions of cognitive capacity, whereas high social value resulted in increased emotion perception. In Study 3, robots with high social value were more likely to be afforded protection from harm, and such effect was related to levels of ascribed emotional experience. Together, the findings demonstrate a dissociation between function type (social vs. economic) and ascribed mind (emotion vs. cognition). In addition, the two types of functions exert asymmetric influences on the moral treatment of robots. Theoretical and practical implications for the field of social psychology and human-computer interaction are discussed. (shrink)

Moral psychologists have shown that people’s past moral experiences can affect their subsequent moral decisions. One prominent finding in this line of research is that when people make a judgment about the Trolley dilemma after considering the Footbridge dilemma, they are significantly less likely to decide it is acceptable to redirect a train to save five people. Additionally, this ordering effect is asymmetrical, as making a judgment about the Trolley dilemma has little to no effect on people’s judgments (...) about the Footbridge dilemma. We argue that this asymmetry is the result of a difference in how each dilemma affects people’s beliefs about the importance of saving lives. In two experiments, we show that considering the Footbridge dilemma disconfirms these beliefs, while considering the Trolley dilemma does not significantly affect them. Consistent with predictions of sequential learning models, our findings offer a clear and parsimonious account of the asymmetry in the ordering effect. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have advanced a surprising conclusion: people's judgments about whether an agent brought about an outcome intentionally are pervasively influenced by normative considerations. In this paper, we investigate the ‘Chairman case’, an influential case from this literature and disagree with this conclusion. Using a statistical method called structural path modeling, we show that people's attributions of intentional action to an agent are driven not by normative assessments, but rather by attributions of underlying values and characterological (...) dispositions to the agent. In a second study, we examined people's judgments about what they think drives asymmetric intuitions in the Chairman case and found that people are highly inaccurate in identifying which features of the case their intuitions track. In the final part of the paper, we discuss how the statistical methods used in this study can help philosophers with the critical features problem, the problem of figuring out which among the myriad features present in hypothetical cases are the critical ones that our intuitions are responsive to. We show how the methods used in this study have some advantages over both armchair methods used by traditional philosophers and survey methods used by experimental philosophers. (shrink)

It is practically inevitable that even the best-intentioned public officials occasionally inflict unjust harm on people who should not have to suffer it. They mistakenly arrest innocent suspects, and convict innocent defendants. They erroneously adopt and enforce criminal laws that unduly restrict our freedom. They vote for, implement, and enforce tax laws that unfairly burden some citizens. And yet it is widely assumed that, as long as such officials act in good faith, and follow certain institutional rules, we aren’t permitted (...) to protect the innocent victims of their mistakes by inflicting defensive harm on the officials. As a result, those victims may have to suffer injustices that we could, in principle, prevent. This is so even though, if a private person imposed similarly unjust harm, and did so on the basis of mistaken judgments that were equally in good faith, and just as reliable as the institutional judgments guiding the official, we could permissibly harm that person to defend the victim. This essay considers whether, and how, this asymmetric treatment can be justified. After some ground-clearing that sharpens the question, it briefly considers the dominant explanation offered by political philosophers, which focuses on how resisting official mistakes would impact innocent third parties (most obviously, one’s fellow citizens). Finding these explanations wanting, the essay turns to a less frequently considered alternative: under certain conditions, defending the innocent victim against the official’s mistake is unfair to the official who would be harmed in the process. In particular, if officials act for their subjects (in a quite specific sense), then we may, as a matter of fairness, be barred from harming the officials to protect those subjects from (some of) the unjust harms that officials erroneously inflict. This account chimes with familiar views in the history of political thought that take legitimate political power to be held in trust for the people, and legitimate governments to stand in fiduciary relations to their subjects. It explains why officials may in principle have special moral protection that private persons usually lack, and why we may have to put up with officials’ mistakes even if they inflict injustice on innocent persons. But it also reveals how demanding the conditions are under which officials have such protection, and why many existing legal and political institutions lack the legitimacy, and their officials the special moral protection against defensive harm, that they purport to have. (shrink)

In this paper we develop test cases to adjudicate between dual-process and the causal mapping explanations of order effects. Using dilemmas with minimized emotional force, we explore new conditions for order effects to occur. Overall, the results support causal model theory. We produced novel evidence that order effects extend not only to cases with low emotional engagement, but also to specialized judgments about whether an action violates a rule. However, when objects are sacrificed instead of persons the order effect (...) either disappears or becomes symmetrical, contrary to previous theorizing that it is an asymmetrical transfer effect. Causal model theory needs to be developed to include interplays between the moral status of sacrificed entities and computational models of causal mapping. Symmetric order effects remain a puzzle, motivating future research. Though we do not know how to explain them yet, we discuss how symmetric order effects can influence policy decision making. (shrink)

Some people succeed in adopting feminist ideals in spite of the prevalence of asymmetric power relations. However, those who adopt such ideals face a number of psychological difficulties in inhibiting stereotype-based judgments. I argue that a Spinozan theory of belief fixation offers a more complete understanding of the mechanisms that underwrite our intuitive stereotype-based judgments. I also argue that a Spinozan theory of belief fixation offers resources for avoiding stereotype-based judgments where they are antecedently recognized to be (...) pernicious and insidious. Key Words: Spinozan theory of mind • stereotypes • feminism • dual-process theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Agent-Centered Morality: An Aristotelian Alternative to Kantian InternalismDaniel E. PalmerGeorge W. Harris. Agent-Centered Morality: An Aristotelian Alternative to Kantian Internalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 434. Cloth, $60.00.Contemporary philosophers have found substantial resources in the ethical writings of both Aristotle and Kant. Together Aristotelian-inspired virtue ethics and Kantian constructivism have not only contributed greatly to the resurgence of interest in normative theory in recent (...) decades, but have also provided the most prominent alternatives to the utilitarianism that has dominated Anglo-American ethics for so long. However, the development of these ethical projects has been carried out largely independently of one another. In Agent-Centered Morality, George Harris helps to overcome this lacuna by comparing and contrasting these two competing versions of [End Page 449] morality. As such, this work is a welcome addition to the literature both as a survey of recent work in Aristotelian and Kantian ethics as well as an account of the many ways in which they converge and diverge in their corresponding treatments of practical rationality.Harris begins by noting that the appeal of both the Aristotelian and Kantian models is that they attempt to generate a foundation for ethics within an account of practical reason, and thus to ground morality within a deliberative perspective that connects the demands of morality with an agent's own meaningful commitments. As such, Harris correctly argues that these projects have much more in common than has sometimes been supposed. The central question that Harris raises in this book is which account of practical reason is best suited for this task. His thesis is that the Aristotelian model gives us a more plausible picture of the role of norms within practical rationality.The major distinction between the Aristotelian and the Kantian models according to Harris is that while on the Aristotelian model the norms made use of in practical judgments are symmetric in their regulative function, the Kantian model provides an asymmetrical account of norms. To arbitrate between these two views, Harris proposes an integration test. The point of the integration test is to assure that our account of practical rationality and the function of regulative norms that it provides can support the integrity of rational agents. Minimally then, the test will favor the account of practical rationality that best "integrates the various concerns of rational human agents in a way that preserves integrity" (32).While the above vastly simplifies Harris's rich treatment of this issue, it nonetheless allows us to see how Harris goes about arguing for the superiority of the Aristotelian view. For Harris maintains that the Aristotelian symmetrical model integrates regulative norms better than the Kantian model. To show why, Harris makes use of a number of examples to demonstrate that regulative norms function in a symmetrical fashion in regards to one another for the agent of integrity. For instance, to show that the norm of impartial respect is sometimes regulated by the norm of impartial sympathy, Harris gives an example of someone who breaks a lunch date in order to help a dog that is being mistreated. Likewise, Harris uses examples to argue that sometimes even partial norms, like that of parental concern, regulate the impartial norm of respect. Harris believes that these cases demonstrate that the regulative norms made use of in practical deliberation must function in a symmetrical fashion. Thus, Harris thinks we have good reason to reject the Kantian view "that the integrative function of practical reason is achieved by an impartial norm that is asymmetrical in its regulative function" (127).Though interesting and worthy of attention, I am not convinced that Harris makes use of the most plausible understanding of the Kantian model of practical rationality in his central argument. By focusing almost exclusively upon the idea of respect, Harris assumes that the best reading of the Kantian project will be founded primarily in the idea of impartial respect. However, if we adopt a procedural understanding of the Categorical Imperative, a plausible case could be made that a Kantian account of practical rationality can account for the examples that Harris makes use of just as well as the Aristotelian... (shrink)

At the most mundane level, CCTV observes bodies, and as such attaches great importance to the specific features of the human body. At the same time, however, bodies tend to disappear, as they are represented electronically by the camera monitors and, in the case of image recording, by the computer systems processing data. The roles of bodies(either as targets of surveillance or as translations into flows of disembodied information), however, are not unimportant or inconsequential, but may in fact give rise (...) to a number of tangible ethical dilemmas. Firstly, the virtual representation of the embodied actor is not a neutral, unproblematic process. Body representation techniques such as CCTV produce constructions of the subject that involve judgmental, discriminatory processes of categorisation and are based on asymmetrical relations between observers and observed. Secondly, the `data doubles' are not inconsequential: the representations of the body produced by CCTV can have palpable consequences for the embodied self and its life chances. The widespread use of CCTV could therefore give rise to individual as well as social issues, and possibly in a different manner than previous surveillance technologies. This fact signals the need for(re-)conceptualisations of moral values (such as privacy) applicable to the case of CCTV which take into account the importance of bodily protections. (shrink)

The traditional Turing test appeals to an interrogator's judgement to determine whether or not their interlocutor is an intelligent agent. This paper argues that this kind of asymmetric experimental set-up is inappropriate for tracking a property such as intelligence because intelligence is grounded in part by symmetric relations of recognition between agents. In place, it proposes a reciprocal test which takes into account the judgments of both interrogators and competitors to determine if an agent is intelligent. This form of (...) social interaction better tracks both the evolution of natural intelligence and how the concept of intelligence is actually used within our society. This new test is defended against the criticisms that a proof of intelligence requires a demonstration of self-consciousness and that semantic externalism entails that a non-embodied Turing test is inadequate. (shrink)

There are some cases where it appears permissible to perform a rescue at someone’s expense, and other cases where it appears impermissible to do so. Existing explanations for our asymmetric moral judgments about such cases either fail to provide intuitive moral verdicts or lack a satisfying rationale. In this article, I propose a new explanation of what is morally problematic about certain rescues that is subject to neither issue. My proposal is a version of the means principle which adds (...) the essential caveat that there is no moral presumption against using someone as a means to benefit herself. By attributing moral significance to the victim’s relationship to the beneficiary rather than the agent alone, my solution points to a new underlying rationale for the means principle as well as extensional and explanatory inadequacies in competing theories. (shrink)

Critics of clinical artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that the technology is ethically harmful because it may lead to the dehumanization of the doctor–patient relationship (DPR) by eliminating moral empathy, which is viewed as a distinctively human trait. The benefits of clinical empathy—that is, moral empathy applied in the clinical context—are widely praised, but this praise is often unquestioning and lacks context. In this article, I will argue that criticisms of clinical AI based on appeals to empathy are misplaced. As psychological (...) and philosophical research has shown, empathy leads to certain types of biased reasoning and choices. These biases of empathy consistently impact the DPR. Empathy may lead to partial judgments and asymmetric DPRs, as well as disparities in the treatment of patients, undermining respect for patient autonomy and equality. Engineers should consider the flaws of empathy when designing affective artificial systems in the future. The nature of sympathy and compassion (i.e., displaying emotional concern while maintaining some balanced distance) has been defended by some ethicists as more beneficial than perspective-taking in the clinical context. However, these claims do not seem to have impacted the AI debate. Thus, this article will also argue that if machines are programmed for affective behavior, they should also be given some ethical scaffolding. (shrink)

This article compares the concepts of judgment of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida. At first glance, there are a number of striking parallels between the two. Both draw on Immanuel Kant’s reflections on judgment but reject his transcendentalist premises and his exclusive focus on aesthetic concerns in order to turn judging into a practice at the intersection of law and justice. Beneath these parallels, however, there are significant differences. This, we argue, is nowhere clearer than in Arendt’s and Derrida’s contrasting (...) positions on the death penalty. The article is structured as follows. We begin by outlining the main features of Arendt’s theory of judgment and then turn to her thoughts on the trial against Adolf Eichmann, which we consider a radicalization of this theory. We show that although Arendt claims that it is our sense of justice that demands that Eichmann be brought to trial, she ultimately does not clarify what a just verdict might be in his case. Instead, she opts for the death penalty as a last resort for dealing with those who have committed crimes against humanity. Next, we discuss Derrida’s reflections on judgment. For him, the tension between law and justice is asymmetrical. Law should be understood as arising from the demand of the Other and must always remain responsive to it, despite its attempts at universalization. From this it follows, according to Derrida, that judgments ought to be open to criticism and revision. Since the death penalty does not meet this requirement, it must be rejected. (shrink)

Introduction. War occupies a special place in the mankind development because it is an integral part of its history. Thousands of researchers have been engaged in the problem of war from the standpoint of various sciences. The confrontation of nations and individual social groups as a social and political fact has been seen in philosophical thought since the epoch of the first major civilizations. However, at the present stage of society’s development, the problems of war are closely connected with the (...) national security phenomenon because the state protection from internal and external threats actually prevents the risks of damage to manpower, civilian population, infrastructure, and economy. The purpose of the study is to determine to what degree the leading characteristics of the three main war forms influence the national security transformation at the present stage of society development. Methods. To achieve the study purpose and solve the tasks set, the logical method of analysis for structuring materials, the historical method for correct and chronologically consistent presentation of facts, the comparative method for identifying distinctive parameters in the compared judgments and the deductive method for determining conclusions based on the results of the study are used. Scientific novelty of the research. The study provides a detailed analysis of modern wars and their impact on national security. The author has studied the interrelationships between various forms of military conflicts and their consequences for the stability of the state. Special attention is paid to the methodology of analyzing hybrid and asymmetric wars, which allows a deeper understanding of their characteristics and impact on the national security system. This approach helps to better understand the dynamics of modern threats and strategies to counter them. Results. The author gives the definition of national security through the war phenomenon, determines the features of conventional war that influence the formation of the national security of the state and the requirements for transforming security, analyzes the influence of asymmetric warfare methods on national security, determines the features of hybrid warfare in opposition to the fundamentals of national security, and makes the conclusion on the influence of various war forms on national security transformation and stability. Conclusions. At the present stage of the world community development, various war forms require an individual state to transform methods and mechanisms of national security that would not keep up or catch up with the war technologies but prevent threats based on a stable national identity, the coordinated work of all actors of national security, the construction of mechanisms that serve the stability of social and economic activity. (shrink)

Critics take issue with Arendt’s writings on the question of race in the United States, especially in On Violence [1970] and her controversial essays on school desegregation and education “Reflections on Little Rock” [1959] and “The Crisis in Education” [1958]. Recent works, such as that of Kathryn Sophia Belle, Patricia Owens, and Chad Kautzer, call to reevaluate Arendt’s canonical status through the lens of her anti-Black racism and warns that her thought sanctions state violence against racial groups. Anne Norton and (...) Robert Bernasconi argued before against Arendt’s failure to acknowledge Black agency and thought and how anti-Black racism structures the political realm in American society. While I agree with these critiques about Arendt’s shortsighted and questionable judgments, I find in her writings on guilt and political responsibility a resource to think resistance to anti-Black racism. This is not an obvious claim as the literature on Arendt’s notion of political responsibility focuses mainly on her writings about post-war Germany and the controversy following the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem [1963] rather than her controversial writings on race and racism in the US. Yet we can find this connection in Arendt’s writing when she questions “white guilt” as an instance of collective guilt in On Violence (64-65) or when she criticizes in “Reflections” the abandonment of responsibility in its two senses: the responsibility to protect the children and the responsibility for the world (50). In the following I explain the relevance of political responsibility to confronting structural and historical racial injustices. I address critiques about the asymmetrical burden of responsibility and white ignorance and show support for the constructive, actional, backward- and forward-looking dimensions of political responsibility in the visions and platforms of the Movement for Black Lives. (shrink)

This article-based dissertation studies the question whether Husserl could be understood as an internalist or an externalist about meaning or content. In this context, internalism and externalism represent different answers to the question whether things external to the subject, namely features of the subject’s social and physical environment, may individuate the content of the subject’s intentional states (e.g., judgments, beliefs, perceptions). Where internalism maintains that content can only be individuated by internal factors, externalism claims that content can also be (...) individuated by external factors. Husserl has traditionally been interpreted as an internalist, but in the past few decades this interpretation has been challenged. Yet, scholars continue to disagree whether Husserl is then better understood as an externalist or as a philosopher who cannot be positioned within the internalism-externalism debate in the first place. The main results of this dissertation are that the internalism-externalism framework remains meaningful within the transcendental framework of Husserl’s philosophy and that Husserl is better understood as an externalist. These results emerge from three original research articles, which are presented and discussed in an introductory chapter. -/- The first article analyses the argument that Husserl cannot be understood within the internalism-externalism framework because Husserl renounces a distinction between internality and externality. The article demonstrates that Husserl rejects the internal-external divide only in the spatial sense in which it is usually understood and suggests that if the internal-external divide is understood in relation to the subject’s point of view, the internal-external divide can be rendered applicable to the transcendental framework of Husserl’s philosophy. The second article evaluates the interpretational dispute about Husserl’s concept of the noema in relation to the internalism-externalism debate. The article proposes a reconciliation between two opposing interpretations of the noema by claiming that both interpretations can be correct in two separate areas of phenomenological investigation. Reconciling these two noema interpretations, the article then shows that these interpretations do not, unlike it has been previously presumed, have any direct implications for the question whether Husserl is an internalist or an externalist. The answer to this question rather hinges on what the correct way is to understand the individuation of meaning, which is not settled by either noema interpretation. The third article outlines an answer to this question. The article studies a research manuscript in which Husserl deals with the question about the identity of meaning which is associated with the philosophical problem in the internalism-externalism debate about the individuation of meaning. The article assesses different internalist interpretations of Husserl’s manuscript and proposes an externalist reading of it instead. The article develops an externalist interpretation of Husserl that reconciles the realism of externalism and the transcendental standpoint of Husserl’s phenomenology by synthesizing an asymmetrical view of individuation with Husserl’s view of the correlation between consciousness and the world. (shrink)

If two stimuli need different times to be processed, this difference should in principle be reflected both by response times (RT) and by judgments of their temporal order (TOJ). However, several dissociations have been reported between RT and TOJ, e.g., RT is more affected than TOJ when stimulus intensity decreases. One account for these dissociations is to assume differences in the allocation of attention induced by the two tasks. To test this hypothesis, different distributions of attention were induced in (...) the present study between two stimulus positions (above and below fixation). Only bright stimuli appeared in one position and either bright or dim stimuli in the other. In the two RT experiments, participants had to respond to every stimulus appearing in one of the two positions. Reaction times to bright stimuli were faster when they appeared in the position where dim stimuli were likely to occur. This finding suggests that the allocation of attention was adapted to the asymmetrical arrangement of stimuli, not suggested by explicit instruction. In the two TOJ experiments, the temporal order of stimuli appearing in the two positions had to be judged. Although bright stimuli appearing at the bright-and-dim location were judged to be earlier, this effect was small and insignificant. Further, the intensity dissociation between RT and TOJ was insensitive to random vs blockwise presentations of intensities, therefore was not modified by attentional preferences. Thus, asymmetrical arrangement of stimuli has an impact on the allocation of attention, but only in the RT task. Therefore dissociations between TOJ and response times cannot be accounted for by an attentional bias in the TOJ task but probably by different use of temporal information in the two tasks. (shrink)

Frank Sibley's ideas have been particularly influential among contemporary philosophers interested in aesthetics. Most studies, however, have focused only on his earlier works. In this essay, I explore Sibley's account of the adjectives ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’, paying particular attention to three papers that have only recently been published and that have not yet received adequate attention. In particular, I discuss his account of the adjective ‘beautiful’, which relies on the controversial notion of an aesthetic ideal. In addition, I discuss an (...) account of how aesthetic judgements may change in relation to our coming to know the kind of object being judged and whether, as Sibley maintains, ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ are asymmetric in the sense specified by the author. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with thoughts for further research.

A major focus of ethical argumentation is determining the relative merits of proposed ethical systems. Nevertheless, even the demonstration that a given ethical system was the one most likely to be correct would not establish that an agent should act in accord with that system. Consider, for example, a situation in which the ethical system most likely to be valid is modestly supportive of a certain action, whereas a less plausible system strongly condemns the same action. Should the agent perform (...) the action, arguing that the most plausible system supports doing so, or avoid the action, being conservative about the strong condemnation of it from a less plausible system? I argue that, in general, different ethical frameworks see the ethical world in fundamentally different ways, rendering the comparison of degrees of support and opposition of actions between systems intrinsically invalid. One should indeed choose to act in accord with the most defensible system. I believe that this important topic needs more attention than it has gotten to date. (shrink)

Studies of the conceptual abilities of nonhuman primates demonstrate the substantial range of these abilities as well as their limitations. Such abilities range from categorization on the basis of shared physical attributes, associative relations and functions to abstract concepts as reflected in analogical reasoning about relations between relations. The pattern of results from these studies point to a fundamental distinction between monkeys and apes in both their implicit and explicit conceptual capacities. Monkeys, but not apes, might be best regarded as (...) “paleo‐logicans” in the sense that they form common class concepts of identity on the basis of identical predicates (i.e., shared features). The discrimination of presumably more abstract relations commonly involves relatively simple procedural strategies mediated by associative processes likely shared by all mammals. There is no evidence that monkeys can perceive, let alone judge, relations‐between‐relations. This analogical conceptual capacity is found only in chimpanzees and humans. Interestingly, the “analogical ape,” like the child, can make its analogical knowledge explicit only if it is first provided with a symbol system by which propositional representations can be encoded and manipulated. (shrink)

Dimensions of the ethical work climate, as conceptualized by Victor and Cullen (1988), are potentially important influences on individual ethical decision-making in the organizational context. The present study examined the direct and indirect effects of individuals' perceptions of work climate on their ethical judgments and behavioral intentions regarding an ethical dilemma. A national sample of marketers was surveyed in a scenario-based research study. The results indicated that, although perceived climate dimensions did not have a direct effect on behavioral intentions, (...) there were significant moderating effects. Climates perceived as emphasizing social responsibility and rules/codes moderated the individual ethical judgment-behavioral intentions relationship such that individuals were less likely to say that they would engage in a questionable selling practice even when they themselves did not believe the practice to be unethical. Respondents were somewhat more likely to form intentions consistent with their judgment that the questionable practice was morally acceptable when the ethical climate was characterized by an emphasis on team/friendship. (shrink)

The relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior at work has remained elusive. In fact, inconsistent results in observed magnitudes and direction led Hood et al. (The psychology of religion: An empirical approach, 1996 ) to describe the relationship between religiosity and ethics as “something of a roller coaster ride.” Weaver and Agle (Acad Manage Rev 27(1):77–97, 2002 ) utilizing social structural versions of symbolic interactionism theory reasoned that we should not expect religion to affect ethical outcomes for all religious individuals; (...) rather, such a relationship likely depends on specific religious attitudes including religious motivation orientation (intrinsic RMO vs. extrinsic RMO), perceived sacred qualities of work (job sanctification), and views of God (VOG, loving vs. punishing). We examined the effects of these three religious attitudes on participants’ judgments of 29 ethically questionable vignettes. Consistent with symbolic interactionism theory, intrinsic RMO and having a loving view of God were both negatively related to endorsing ethically questionable vignettes, whereas extrinsic RMO was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. Unexpectedly, job sanctification was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic RMO moderated this relationship such that sanctifying one’s job was related to ethical judgments only for those who were: (a) low in intrinsic RMO or (b) high in extrinsic RMO. We reasoned based on symbolic interactionism theory that intrinsically motivated participants, in contrast to extrinsically motivated participants, may have utilized their religious beliefs as a guiding framework in making ethical judgments. (shrink)

Advances in technology are bringing greater insight into the mind, raising a host of privacy concerns. However, the basic psychological mechanisms underlying the perception of privacy violations are poorly understood. Here, we explore the relation between the perception of privacy violations and access to information related to one’s “self.” In two studies using demographically diverse samples, we find that privacy violations resulting from various monitoring technologies are mediated by the extent to which the monitoring is thought to provide access to (...) self-relevant information, and generally neuromonitoring did not rate among the more invasive monitoring types. However, brain monitoring was judged to be more of a privacy violation when described as providing access to self-relevant information than when no such access was possible, and control participants did not judge the invasiveness of neuromonitoring any differently than those told it provided no access to self-relevant information. (shrink)

According to previous research, threatening people’s belief in free will may undermine moral judgments and behavior. Four studies tested this claim. Study 1 used a Velten technique to threaten people’s belief in free will and found no effects on moral behavior, judgments of blame, and punishment decisions. Study 2 used six different threats to free will and failed to find effects on judgments of blame and wrongness. Study 3 found no effects on moral judgment when manipulating general (...) free will beliefs but found strong effects when manipulating the perceived choice capacity of the judged agent. Study 4 used pretested narratives that varied agents’ apparent free will and found that perceived choice capacity mediated the relationship between free will and blame. These results suggest that people’s general beliefs about whether free will exists have no impact on moral judgments but specific judgments about the agent’s choice capacity do. (shrink)

In recent decades, several attempts have been made to characterize Buddhism as a systematically unified and consistent normative ethical theory. This has given rise to a growing interest in meta-ethical questions. Meta-ethics can be broadly or narrowly defined. Defined broadly, it is a domain of inquiry concerned with the nature and status of the fundamental or framing presuppositions of normative ethical theories, where this includes the cognitive and epistemic requirements of presupposed conceptions of ethical agency.1 Defined narrowly, it concerns the (...) justificatory status of fundamental moral claims or judgments, i.e., claims or judgments of the form ‘x is good, right, virtuous’ and ‘x is bad, wrong, vicious.’.. (shrink)

Court judgments contain valuable information on how statutory laws and past court precedents are interpreted and how the interdependence structure among them evolves in the courtroom. Data-mining the evolving structure of such customs and norms that reflect myriad social values from a large-scale court judgment corpus is an essential task from both the academic and industrial perspectives. In this paper, using data from approximately 110,000 court judgments from Japan spanning the period 1998–2018 from the district to the supreme (...) court level, we propose two tasks that grasp such a structure from court judgments and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of major machine learning models. One is a prediction task based on masked language modeling that connects textual information to legal codes and past court precedents. Another is a dynamic link prediction task where we predict the hidden interdependence structure in the law. We make quantitative and qualitative comparisons among major machine learning models to obtain insights for future developments. (shrink)

Research has documented that individuals consider outcomes, intentions, and transgressor negligence when making morally relevant judgments (Nobes, Panagiotaki, & Engelhardt, 2017). However, less is known about whether individuals attend to both victim and transgressor negligence in their evaluations. The current study measured 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds (N = 70), 7‐ to 12‐year‐olds (N = 54), and adults' (N = 97, ages 18–25 years) moral judgments about scenarios in which an accidental transgression occurred involving property damage or physical harm. Participants (...) were either assigned to conditions where the victim or the transgressor was negligent. Results revealed attention to negligence among all participants across a range of different moral judgment measures (including acceptability judgments, punishment judgments, and attributions of blame), with age‐related increases in attention to negligence evident. Results provide novel evidence that children and adults consider not just outcomes and intentions, but also the role of negligence in both victims and transgressors, when making social decisions. (shrink)

In a series of three behavioral experiments, we found a systematic distortion of probability judgments concerning elementary visual stimuli. Participants were briefly shown a set of figures that had two features (e.g., a geometric shape and a color) with two possible values each (e.g., triangle or circle and black or white). A figure was then drawn, and participants were informed about the value of one of its features (e.g., that the figure was a “circle”) and had to predict the (...) value of the other feature (e.g., whether the figure was “black” or “white”). We repeated this procedure for various sets of figures and, by varying the statistical association between features in the sets, we manipulated the probability of a feature given the evidence of another (e.g., the posterior probability of hypothesis “black” given the evidence “circle”) as well as the support provided by a feature to another (e.g., the impact, or confirmation, of evidence “circle” on the hypothesis “black”). Results indicated that participants’ judgments were deeply affected by impact, although they only should have depended on the probability distributions over the features, and that the dissociation between evidential impact and posterior probability increased the number of errors. The implications of these findings for lower and higher level cognitive models are discussed. (shrink)