This article analyses the general ethical milieu in a nursing home for elderly residents and provides a decision-making model for analysing the ethical situations that arise. It considers what it means for the residents to live together and for the staff to be in ethically problematic situations when caring for residents. An interpretative phenomenological approach and Sandman’s ethical model proved useful for this purpose. Systematic observations were carried out and interpretation of the general ethical milieu was summarized as ‘being in (...) the same world without meeting’. Two themes and four subthemes emerged from the analysis. Three different ethical problems were analysed. The outcome of using the decision-making model highlighted the discrepancy between the solutions used and well-founded solutions to these problems. An important conclusion that emerged from this study was the need for a structured tool for reflection. (shrink)

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson’s classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes , is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., & Olsson, A. . Failure to detect mismatches between intention and (...) outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310, 116–119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports. (shrink)

This work is a step toward the development of a logic for types and computation that includes not only the usual spaces of mathematics and constructions, but also spaces from logic and domain theory. Using realizability, we investigate a configuration of three toposes that we regard as describing a notion of relative computability. Attention is focussed on a certain local map of toposes, which we first study axiomatically, and then by deriving a modal calculus as its internal logic. The resulting (...) framework is intended as a setting for the logical and categorical study of relative computability. (shrink)

How should scarce healthcare resources be distributed? This is a contentious issue that became especially pressing during the pandemic. It is often emphasised that studies exploring public views about this question provide valuable input to the issue of healthcare priority setting. While there has been a vast number of such studies it is rarely articulated, more specifically, what the results from these studies would mean for the justification of principles for priority setting. On the one hand, it seems unreasonable that (...) public values would straightforwardly decide the ethical question of how resources should be distributed. On the other hand, in a democratic society, it seems equally unreasonable that they would be considered irrelevant for this question. In this paper we draw on the notion of reflective equilibrium and discuss the relevance and roles that empirical studies may plausibly have for justification in priority setting ethics. We develop a framework for analysing how different kinds of empirical results may have different kinds of implications for justification. (shrink)

A majority of South Africans agrees that when science and religion conflict, religion is always right. Is this an indication the public is anti-science or does the question wording hide a more complex relationship? We examined the relationship between science and religion in South Africa using quantitative data from the World Values Survey and qualitative data from face-to-face interviews. As research on the potential conflict between science and religion is predominantly focused on Western countries, the present study focuses on Africa (...) and compares results with those of two Western countries. Findings show that almost 76% South Africans agree that religion is always right and religious belief, social trust and education were significant predictors of this perception. Comparing findings with data from Zimbabwe, the United States and Germany, we found that while the influence of religiosity is significant across countries, comparatively, trust seems to be more of an African issue. The qualitative interviews, however, provided an elaboration of the relationship between science and religion in South Africa, indicating that choosing either science or religion is not always an outright rejection of the other. The relationships were classified as those informed by cognitive dissonance, often expressed in hierarchical associations, and those influenced by cognitive polyphasia, a complementary and transformative coexistence. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has become of great interest to both researchers and practitioners alike with much discussion on whether the costs outweigh the performance implications. CSR has become a firm strategic tool as firms recognize that the customer value proposition and CSR is integrated with the focus on how to differentiate the firm from the view of the customer. We utilized market orientation theory as our foundation for our research as it explains how organizations adapt to their customer environment to (...) develop competitive advantages. With the current customer focus on CSR, MO assists the field in identifying a possible firm differentiation. Our research found that firms that ranked high on CSR correlated positively to performance. We also found our theoretically developed constructs of firm customer orientation and firm market orientation correlated with the firm adopting CSR. The results also indicated that CSR positively mediates CO and MO to firm performance. As past research had mixed results over the direct relation of MO to performance, our research suggests that CSR may be the missing variable to explain the MO/performance relationship. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the relation between health-care needs and patients’ desires within shared decision-making in a context of priority setting in health care. We begin by outlining some general characteristics of the concept of health-care need as well as the notions of SDM and desire. Secondly we will discuss how to distinguish between needs and desires for health care. Thirdly we present three cases which all aim to bring out and discuss a number of queries which seem to (...) arise due to the double focus on a patient’s need and what that patient desires. These queries regard the following themes: the objectivity and moral force of needs, the prediction about what kind of patients which will appear on a micro level, implications for ranking in priority setting, difficulties regarding assessing and comparing benefits, and implications for evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

systematicity is. Until systematicity is adequately systematicity. Most contributors to these debates have clarified, we cannot know whether classical paid little or no attention to the alleged empirical.

As vaccines against COVID-19 are scarce, many countries have developed vaccination prioritisation strategies focusing on ethical and epidemiological considerations. However, public acceptance of such strategies should be monitored to ensure successful implementation. In an experiment withN=1379 German participants, we investigated whether the public’s vaccination allocation preferences matched the prioritisation strategy approved by the German government. Results revealed different allocations. While the government had top-prioritised vulnerable people (being of high age or accommodated in nursing homes for the elderly), participants preferred exclusive (...) allocation of the first available vaccines to medical staff and personnel caring for the elderly. Interestingly, allocation preferences did not change when participants were told how many individuals were included in each group. As differences between allocation policies and public preferences can affect trust in the government and threaten the social contract between generations, we discuss possible strategies to align vaccination prioritisations. (shrink)

Companies have been experiencing increasing pressure from NGOs to overcome unethical and unsustainable behaviours. The purpose of this research was to study the interplay between supply chain transparency and NGO pressure. The analysis builds on the literature on supply chain transparency and institutional pressures. We conducted a time-lagged, multi-level regression analysis that included data from 270 fashion companies over a 5-year period to investigate the effect of NGO pressure on transparency and vice versa. The results revealed that companies with higher (...) levels of transparency are more likely to be pressured by NGOs than less transparent companies. Furthermore, our findings show that, depending on the number of campaigns, NGO power and communication about campaigns, NGO pressure can either stimulate corporate transparency or turn into a negative effect that leads to lower levels of transparency. (shrink)

During a pandemic, demand for intensive care often exceeds availability. Experts agree that allocation should maximize benefits and must not be based on whether patients could have taken preventive measures. However, intensive care units are often overburdened by individuals with severe COVID-19 who have chosen not to be vaccinated to prevent the disease. This article reports an experiment that investigated the German public's prioritization preferences during the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic. In a series of scenarios, participants were asked (...) to decide on ICU admission for patients who differed in terms of health condition, expected treatment benefits, and vaccination status. The results reveal an in-group bias, as vaccinated individuals preferred to allocate more resources to the vaccinated than to the unvaccinated. Participants also favored admitting a heart attack patient rather than a COVID-19 patient with the same likelihood of benefiting from ICU admission, indicating a preference for maintaining regular ICU services rather than treating those with severe COVID-19. Finally, participants were more likely to admit a patient to intensive care when this meant withholding rather than withdrawing care from another patient. The results indicate that lay prioritizations violate established allocation principles, presaging potential conflicts between those in need of intensive care and those who provide and allocate it. It is therefore recommended that allocation principles should be explained to enhance public understanding. Additionally, vaccination rates should be increased to relieve ICUs and reduce the need for such triage decisions. (shrink)

The authors offer a clear, succinct and basic introduction to set theory and formal logic for linguists.

We present a complete elementary axiomatization of local maps of toposes.

Accounts of analogical inference are usually categorized into four broad groups: abductive, deductive, inductive and sui generis. The purpose of this paper is to defend a sui generis model of analogical inference. It focuses on the sui generis account, as developed by Juthe [2005, 2009, 2015, 2016] and Botting’s [2017] criticism of it. This paper uses the pragmadialectical theory of argumentation as the methodological framework for analyzing and reconstructing argumentation. The paper has two main points. First, that Juthe’s arguments against (...) a deductive interpretation of prima facie analogy argumentation remain unaffected by Botting’s criticism, which means that many of the reasons against deductive reformulation of analogy argumentation still stand. The additional argument, which Botting himself brings up, that a deductive interpretation cannot account for the cumulative effect of analogies, just provides further reason to reject deductivism. The second main point of this paper is that an inductive interpretation of analogical inference also fails. There are constitutional differences between inductive and analogical inference that cannot be bridged. The result is a firm defense of the sui generis view of analogical inference. (shrink)

The International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation (ICCMA) focuses on reasoning tasks in abstract argumentation frameworks. Submitted solvers are tested on a selected collection of benchmark instances, including artificially generated argumentation frameworks and some frameworks formalizing real-world problems. This paper presents the novelties introduced in the organization of the Third (2019) and Fourth (2021) editions of the competition. In particular, we proposed new tracks to competitors, one dedicated to dynamic solvers (i.e., solvers that incrementally compute solutions of frameworks obtained (...) by incrementally modifying original ones) in ICCMA’19 and one dedicated to approximate algorithms in ICCMA’21. From the analysis of the results, we noticed that i) dynamic recomputation of solutions leads to significant performance improvements, ii) approximation provides much faster results with satisfactory accuracy, and iii) classical solvers improved with respect to previous editions, thus revealing advancement in state of the art. (shrink)

Experiments on choice blindness support von Hippel & Trivers's (VH&T's) conception of the mind as fundamentally divided, but they also highlight a problem for VH&T's idea of non-conscious self-deception: If I try to trick you into believing that I have a certain preference, and the best way is to also trick myself, I might actually end up having that preference, at all levels of processing.

Corporate sustainability is an important strategy and value orientation for marketing, but scarce research addresses the organizational drivers and barriers to including it in companies’ marketing strategies and processes. The purpose of this study is to determine levels of commitment to corporate sustainability in marketing, processes associated with sustainability marketing commitment, drivers of sustainability marketing at the functional level of marketing, and its organizational context. Using survey data from 269 managers in marketing, covering a broad range of industries in Sweden (...) and Denmark, we took a structural modelling approach to examine construct relationships, mediation, and moderation effects. Overall, the findings show that marketing capabilities associated with the innovation of new products, services, and business models constitute a strong driver to leverage sustainability marketing commitment. In conjunction with insights into processes related to the enactment of sustainability marketing, this result indicates that companies’ marketing departments have a propensity to drive corporate sustainability. The study provides substance to the idea of aligning substantive marketing capabilities closer to dynamic capabilities. Accordingly, the study reveals that reliance on market orientation alone does not lead to greater sustainability commitment. (shrink)

Latent variable modeling has revealed important conundrums in the DSM classification system. We agree that the network perspective has potential to inspire new insights and resolve some of these conundrums. We note, however, that alone it cannot really help us understand etiology. Etiology, not comorbidity, is the fundamental question.

This article explores the relationship between organizationalproblem formulation and social responsibility. Thepurpose of the article is to illuminate how organizationalproblem formulations determine the manner in whichthe organization attempts to solve the problem and involve the ascription of significance to a group of stakeholdersseen as relevant for the organization. This has implicationsfor the degree to which they assume responsibilityfor those stakeholders. We discuss three dimensions ofresponsible decision making – rationality in goal attainment,reverence for ethical norms, and respect for stakeholders.Thereby, we arrive (...) at an understanding of how differentorganizations in the same sector conceive of, andattempt to solve fundamental problems in the sector, aswell as how their assumed responsibility is reflected therein.We present and discuss a case that discusses keysimilarities and differences between two organizations inthe drug sector – a pharmaceutical company that producesmedicine for the treatment of drug addiction and a foundationworking with drug rehabilitation. We illuminatehow the two organizations base their activities on divergentformulations of the drug problem and how this ismanifested in their approach to the problem. We argue that this ultimately translates into differences in the inclusion of various stakeholdersin their problem space, and thereby the degree to which they assumeresponsibility for key stakeholders. This contributes to the corporate socialresponsibility literature by providing an in depth account of how problem formulationsshape organizational activities and determine the practical inclusionof stakeholders’ interests in the decisions and activities of organizations. (shrink)

Limiting intensive care is paid increasing attention. In the echoing call for physicians’ ethical self‐restriction, it is easily overlooked, however, that ethics needs a critical epistemological analysis before it can suffice as an emergency brake to futile treatment. This analysis is provided by the present essay. The authors suggest that the difficulties of resolving moral dilemmas related to limiting intensive care may just be due to the unclarified epistemological status of moral claims. Even if normative ethics cannot prescribe right decisions, (...) but only draw conclusions from defined premises, the premises may or may not be true. Their intertwined descriptive and normative evidence is endorsed in an academic and political discourse. There will necessarily be various demands for rationality in prudent decisions between physicians, their patients and society. These demands are formulated dialogically through critical questions and justified answers. A good argument is the convincing one that, finally and ideally, leads to the absence of open objections. Thus, in the end the rightness of a given decision does not depend on axiomatic moral principles, but is comparative and conditional, as it is given in an omnilateral argument. Neither is it the democratic process of shared decision making that we should evaluate, but rather the argumentative state itself, when we judge the morality of health politics and clinical practice. (shrink)

The brain networks underlying human multiple-cue judgment, the judgment of a continuous criterion based on multiple cues, have been examined in a few recent studies, and the ventral precuneus has been found to be a key region. Specifically, activation differences in ventral precuneus (as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) has been linked to an exemplar-based judgment process, where judgments are based on memory for previous similar cases. What aspects of exemplar-based judgment ventral precuneus supports is however poorly understood. (...) Ventral precuneus is a brain region important for various episodic memory processes, where increased engagement of this region together with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the medial temporal lobes (MTL) during learning have been linked to retrieval success. Several alternatives are plausible, for example that reduced brain activity in ventral precuneus during learning to make exemplar-based judgments could reflect reduced needs for visuo-spatial attention as a function of learning to master the task. The present study used fMRI during a multiple-cue judgment task to gain novel neurocognitive evidence informative for the link between learning-related activity changes in ventral precuneus and exemplar-based judgment. Participants (N = 27) spontaneously learned to make judgments during fMRI, in a multiple-cue judgment task specifically designed to induce exemplar-based processing. Contrasting brain activity during late learning to early learning indeed revealed higher activity in ventral precuneus, the bilateral MTL and the vmPFC. Activity in the ventral precuneus and the vmPFC was found to parametrically increase between each judgment event, and activity levels in the ventral precuneus predicted performance after learning. These results are interpreted such that the ventral precuneus supports the aspects of exemplar-based processes that are related to episodic memory, tentatively by building and retrieving memory representations for judgment. (shrink)

Hans Skjervheim har hatt stor betydning for norsk åndsliv og offentlig ordskifte. Han hadde en unik evne til å vise hvordan tidløse filosofiske problemstillinger ikke bare angår fagfilosofer, men også er til stede i den politiske debatt og i hverdagens små og store utfordringer. Mange forbinder nok Skjervheim særlig med ±positivismestriden? på 1960- og 1970-tallet. Denne antologien viser bredden i virksomheten hans, og at mange av Skjervheims tekster har noe betydelig å si om også vår egen tids utfordringer - blant (...) annet om tiltroen til vitenskapen, filosofiens rolle, forvitringen av den liberale orden, økologisk krise, algoritmestyrte sosiale medier, ±fake news? og identitetspolitikk. Forfatterne er en blanding av en eldre garde, som skrev og virket samtidig med Skjervheim, og en yngre garde bestående av toneangivende fagpersoner fra ulike fagområder i dag. De tar alle for seg en eller flere sentrale tekster av Skjervheim og leser dem inn i samtidige problemstillinger. Disse nylesningene aktualiserer og bruker av Skjervheims filosofiske og litterære arv, men peker også på blindflekker og svakheter i hans tenkning - helt i tråd med slik Skjervheim ønsket å bli lest. (shrink)

Der Band Bildung als Kunst beleuchtet die Bildungskonzepte Fichtes, Schillers, Humboldts und Nietzsches.

This collection illuminates the concept of Bildung in the works of Fichte, Schiller, Humboldt, and Nietzsche. Besides seeking to work out the theoretical contour of aesthetic education in the 18th and 19th centuries, the contributions attempt to make reason known to itself in the interdisciplinary study of Bildung, a concept important in fields as diverse as pedagogy, philosophy, and art. Moreover, a detailed examination of the concept of aesthetic education opens new perspectives on education debates in the present. ".

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

This paper explores moral sensitivity in a learning perspective, and a framework is developed for the understanding of how moral sensitivity can be developed through reiterative problem solving in the face of diverse ethical problems. Factors that may inhibit the individual's ability to conceive of moral issues are discussed, and perspectives from moral psychology are integrated with theory on problem formulation. It is argued that (1) the individual's moral sensitivity is pivotal for ethical problem solving, because problem formulation is paramount (...) for further reflection and behaviour; (2) ethical behaviour must be understood both (a) in terms of the individual's psychological make‐up that determines psychological response to moral features and (b) in terms of external constraints on the individual's moral sensitivity; and (3) the development of moral sensitivity can be promoted by actively and consciously pursuing disciplined imagination in multi‐perspective formulations of problems. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of two organizational context variables, codes of conduct and supervisor advice, on personnel decisions in an experimental simulation. Specifically, we studied personnel evaluations and decisions in a situation where codes of conduct conflict with supervisor advice. Past studies showed that supervisors’ advice to prefer ingroup over outgroup candidates leads to discriminatory personnel selection decisions. We extended this line of research by studying how codes of conduct and code enforcement may reduce this form of discrimination. Eighty (...) German managers evaluated and selected candidates from an applicant pool including Germans (ingroup members) and foreigners (outgroup members). Supervisor advice to prefer ingroup members lowered suitability ratings of outgroup members as well as their chances to be selected for an interview. Ethical codes of conduct referring to equal opportunities limited this form of discrimination, but only when codes were enforced by sanctions and integrated into organizational every-day practice. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Withholding and withdrawing treatment are widely regarded as ethically equivalent in medical guidelines and ethics literature. Health care personnel, however, widely perceive moral differences between withholding and withdrawing. The proponents of equivalence argue that any perceived difference can be explained in terms of cognitive biases and flawed reasoning. Thus, policymakers should clear away any resistance to accept the equivalence stance by moral education. To embark on such a campaign of changing attitudes, we need to be convinced that the ethical analysis (...) is correct. Is it? In this article, I take a closer look at the moral relation between withholding and withdrawing. My conclusion is that withholding and withdrawing are not in general ethically equivalent. Thus, medical guidelines should be rewritten, and rather than being “educated” away from their sound judgments, medical professionals and patients should have nuanced medico-ethical discussions regarding withholding and withdrawing treatment. (shrink)

The revival of republicanism was meant to challenge the hegemony of liberalism in contemporary political theory on the grounds that liberals show insufficient concern with institutional protection against political misrule. This article challenges this view by showing how neorepublicanism, particularly on Philip Pettit’s formulation, demands no greater institutional protection than does political liberalism. By identifying neutrality between conceptions of the good as the constraint on institutional requirements that forces neorepublicanism into the liberal framework, the article shows that neutrality is what (...) neorepublicans must jettison to offer a tenable critique of liberalism. Only then can neorepublicans ensure greater protection against misrule by demanding that citizens participate more actively in politics. They can then also criticize liberalism for failing to appreciate the importance of such protection. (shrink)

In patient centred care, shared decision making is a central feature and widely referred to as a norm for patient centred medical consultation. However, it is far from clear how to distinguish SDM from standard models and ideals for medical decision making, such as paternalism and patient choice, and e.g., whether paternalism and patient choice can involve a greater degree of the sort of sharing involved in SDM and still retain their essential features. In the article, different versions of SDM (...) are explored, versions compatible with paternalism and patient choice as well as versions that go beyond these traditional decision making models. Whenever SDM is discussed or introduced it is of importance to be clear over which of these different versions are being pursued, since they connect to basic values and ideals of health care in different ways. It is further argued that we have reason to pursue versions of SDM involving, what is called, a high level dynamics in medical decision-making. This leaves four alternative models to choose between depending on how we balance between the values of patient best interest, patient autonomy, and an effective decision in terms of patient compliance or adherence: Shared Rational Deliberative Patient Choice, Shared Rational Deliberative Paternalism, Shared Rational Deliberative Joint Decision, and Professionally Driven Best Interest Compromise. In relation to these models it is argued that we ideally should use the Shared Rational Deliberative Joint Decision model. However, when the patient and professional fail to reach consensus we will have reason to pursue the Professionally Driven Best Interest Compromise model since this will best harmonise between the different values at stake: patient best interest, patient autonomy, patient adherence and a continued care relationship. (shrink)

In this book Lars Svendsen examines the nature of boredom, how it originated, its history, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will.

Throughout the history of social thought, there has been a constant battle over the true nature of society, and the best way to understand and explain it. This volume covers the development of methodological individualism, including the individualist theory of society from Greek antiquity to modern social science. It is a comprehensive and systematic treatment of methodological individualism in all its manifestations.

The first systematic analysis of the Frankfurt School’s research and theorizing on modern antisemitism. Although the Frankfurt School represents one of the most influential intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, its multifaceted work on modern antisemitism has so far largely been neglected. The Politics of Unreason fills this gap, providing the first systematic study of the Frankfurt School’s philosophical, psychological, political, and social research and theorizing on the problem of antisemitism. Examining the full range of these critical theorists’ contributions, from (...) major studies and prominent essays to seemingly marginal pieces and aphorisms, Lars Rensmann reconstructs how the Frankfurt School, faced with the catastrophe of the genocide against the European Jews, explains forms and causes of anti-Jewish politics of hate. The book also pays special attention to research on coded and “secondary” antisemitism after the Holocaust, and how resentments are politically mobilized under conditions of democracy. By revisiting and rereading the Frankfurt School’s original work, this book challenges several misperceptions about critical theory’s research, making the case that it provides an important source to better understand the social origins and politics of antisemitism, racism, and hate speech in the modern world. Lars Rensmann is Professor of European Politics and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His books include Arendt and Adorno: Political and Philosophical Investigations (coedited with Samir Gandesha). (shrink)

The following paper examines the ways in which the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided redemption to both individual perpetrators and to political organisations responsible for Gross Human Rights Violations by virtue of the particular representational ordering that was adopted. While the genealogy of this representational ordering can be traced back to the Information Management System, a database used for capturing data about perpetrators and victims, this ordering is ultimately apparent in the Final Report. Here we find evidence of (...) the TRC's use of a particular representational ordering to reconcile the dual imperative to be impartial on the one hand, while on the other hand trying not to equate the violations of human rights perpetrated by the ANC with those perpetrated by the apartheid state. The representation of the apartheid state as a unified and homogenous entity is discussed as central to this strategy. (shrink)

The Gricean paradigm in pragmatics has recently been attacked for its alleged lack of explanatory import, based on the claim that it does not seek accounts of how utterance interpretation actually works, but merely of how it might work. This article rebuts this line of attack by offering a clear and detailed account of the explanatory project of Gricean pragmatics according to which the latter aims for rationalizing explanations of utterance interpretation. It is shown that, on this view, Gricean pragmatics (...) seeks psychological explanations of utterance interpretation that are “cognitively real” in a perfectly clear and robust sense. (shrink)

Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation, we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This (...) survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change. (shrink)