Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a questionnaire with (...) ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

1. Can “practice” and “practices” be used as epistemological tools to study history? Can these concepts be used to break up unilateral and teleological narratives one the one hand, and, on the other, to provide a basis for a new understanding and writing of history and histories? The twelve essays (by thirteen authors) collected by Francis Chateauraynaud and Yves Cohen under the title Histoires Pragmatiques (in the Ehess’s Raisons pratiques. Epistémologie, sociologie, théorie sociale series)...

The Italian «constitutional compromise» between the liberal, catholic, and socialist-communist traditions and the «fordist-keynesian compromise» between capital and labor are two frequent set expressions. They are often put together, and sometimes overlapped, insofar as they share an emphasis on the central role of labor, the former putting it at the very foundation of the Republic, the latter at the core of the virtuous circle of mass production and mass consumption. Starting from a discussion of these formulas, the essay will propose (...) some lines of research for the history of the Italian Republic, not without significance for contemporary political discourse. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

English summary: Aufhebung is one of the major terms in philosophy and through it, the author explores the possibility of the ultimate transformation of the mind. By questioning this conceptual node, which stands for destruction and surpassing, disaster and metamorphosis, he tries to find within it the cipher of an ultra-modernity that exists primarily through its destructive power. French text. French description: Aufhebung est l'un des noms majeurs de la philosophie et l'auteur y cherche les chances d'une ultime transformation de (...) l'esprit. Interrogeant ce noeud conceptuel qui, a la fois, signifie destruction et depassement, sursaut et releve, catastrophe et metamorphose, il y cherche le chiffre d'une ultra-modernite qui regne d'abord par son pouvoir de destruction. Elucider la part de sursaut qui demeure encore accessible quand tout se fait decombre, ce n'est pas seulement interroger le plus puissant systeme philosophique de l'Occident, celui de Hegel, c'est demander a des constellations en apparence secondaires ou depassees dans l'economie du savoir: l'instant, la langue, la substance, le secret ou l'analogie de temoigner pour une faculte d'interiorisation et de synthese qui echappe aux desespoirs de l'heure, quand bien meme elle ne s'exercerait dans l'histoire que sous des formes parcellaires, decevantes ou dramatiques. Mais pour ce faire, il faut accepter d'entrer a nouveau, par-dela les certitudes communes de l'espace et du temps, dans le romantisme d'une dialectique absolue qui n'epargne rien, mais eclaire toute chose en s'imposant comme la metaphysique meme de toute destruction. (shrink)

Menschen haben eine Fülle von moralischen Überzeugungen. Wodurch sind diese Überzeugungen aber gerechtfertigt? In diesem Buch wird dafür argumentiert, dass verschiedene Arten von Gründen zur Rechtfertigung von moralischen Überzeugungen beitragen können: Gründe, die ihrerseits Überzeugungen sind, aber auch Gründe, die selbst keine Überzeugungen sind wie etwa Intuitionen, Emotionen und Wünsche. Die These lautet: Wenn derartige Gründe als Inputs in eine verlässliche Überzeugungsbildungsfähigkeit eingehen, sind die daraus resultierenden moralischen Überzeugungen gerechtfertigt.

Autoren Johannes Brachtendorf, Professor für Philosophie am Institut für philosophische Grundfragen der Theologie an der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultät ...

The goal of this study is to characterize observers’ abilities to detect gradual changes and to explore putative dissociations between conscious experience of change and behavioral adaptation to a changing stimulus. We developed a new experimental paradigm in which, on each trial, participants were shown a dot pattern on the screen. Next, the pattern disappeared and participants had to reproduce it. In some conditions, the target pattern was incrementally rotated over successive trials and participants were either informed or not of (...) this change. We analyzed both awareness of the changes and the dynamics of behavioral adaptation, in a way that makes it possible to assess both variability and accuracy as they change over time. Results indicate a dissociation between change awareness and behavioral adaptation to the changes, and support the notion that unconscious representations of visual stimuli are more precise and detailed than previously suggested. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of change detection. (shrink)