This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

1,857 adults rated the grandparental solicitude they received in childhood. Through a simple model based on the evolutionary concepts of ontogenetically differentiated reproductive strategy and paternity confidence, an ordered discriminative pattern of grandparental caregiving was predicted and confirmed by solid main effects, based on 603 complete cases. The maternal grandmother was the most caring. Unlike prevalent gender stereotypes, she was followed by the maternal grandfather, the paternal grandmother, and the paternal grandfather. The preferential grandparental solicitude was not influenced by residential (...) distance, grandparent age, and availability of other grandparents. A predicted higher correlation for male than for female progenitors between solicitude and phenotypic resemblance could be confirmed. (shrink)

In recent years, the receipt and the perception of information has changed in ways which have fueled fears about the fates of our democracies. However, real information on these possibilities or the direction of these changes does not exist. Into this gap, Hahn and colleagues bring the power of Condorcet's (1785) Jury Theorem to show that changes in our information networks have affected voter inter‐dependence so that it is likely that voters are now collectively more ignorant even if individual voter (...) competence remains unchanged. (shrink)

This paper examines the basic question of how we can come to form accurate beliefs about the world when we do not fully know how good or bad our evidence is. Here, we show, using simulations with otherwise optimal agents, the cost of misjudging the quality of our evidence. We compare different strategies for correctly estimating that quality, such as outcome‐ and expectation‐based updating. We also identify conditions under which misjudgment of evidence quality can nevertheless lead to accurate beliefs, as (...) well as those conditions where no strategy will help. These results indicate both where people will nevertheless succeed and where they will fail when information quality is degraded. (shrink)

(2013). Rational argument, rational inference. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 21-35. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.689327.

2. The mouth: Sexuality and metaphysics.

In this essay I examine the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor on the post-secular state. I argue that, although their views on the relation of religion and politics converge in certain respects, a profound difference remains between their overall approaches. Their disagreement on the epistemic status of religious as opposed to secular moral reasons, and on the role religious arguments can play in the public sphere testify to a deeper schism. Thus what might at first seem like a (...) quarrel about details proves to be a fundamental philosophical divide on the issue of modernity. I conclude that Taylor’s model of post-secularism is more promising as an approach to the challenge posed by growing religious and cultural diversity, for, if understood as a version of “reiterative universalism,” it avoids both moral relativism and Eurocentrism. (shrink)

The term “moral heuristic” as used by Sunstein seeks to bring together various traditions. However, there are significant differences between uses of the term “heuristic” in the cognitive and the social psychological research, and these differences are accompanied by very distinct evidential criteria. We suggest the term “moral heuristic” should refer to processes, which means that further evidence is required.

Luck, Value, and Commitment comprises eleven new essays which engage with, or take their point of departure from, the influential work in moral and political philosophy of Bernard Williams (1929-2003).

The statistics of small samples are often quite different from those of large samples, and this needs to be taken into account in assessing the rationality of human behavior. Specifically, in evaluating human responses to environmental statistics, it is the effective environment that matters; that is, the environment actually experienced by the agent needs to be considered, not simply long‐run frequencies. Significant deviations from long‐run statistics may arise through experiential limitations of the agent that stem from resource constraints and/or information‐processing (...) bounds. The article draws together recent work from a number of areas in judgment and decision making ranging from randomness perception (Hahn & Warren, ), information sampling (Hertwig & Pleskac, ; Kareev et al., ), and consequences of choice for exploration or exploitation (e.g., Denrell, ) to demonstrate how proper consideration of these deviations leads to reevaluation of behaviors that are otherwise deemed irrational. (shrink)

This paper investigates the dynamic and performative construction of publics in public engagement exercises. In this investigation, we, on the one hand, analyse how public engagement settings as political machineries frame particular kinds of roles and identities for the participating publics in relation to ‘the public at large’. On the other hand, we study how the participating citizens appropriate, resist and transform these roles and identities, and how they construct themselves and the participating group in relation to wider publics. The (...) empirical basis of our argument is a discussion of four different kinds of participation events in Austria. Building on these observations we develop conclusions about the public up-take of public participation in technoscience and the role of public engagement in current techno-political cultures. (shrink)

Our beliefs and opinions are shaped by others, making our social networks crucial in determining what we believe to be true. Sometimes this is for the good because our peers help us form a more accurate opinion. Sometimes it is for the worse because we are led astray. In this context, we address via agent-based computer simulations the extent to which patterns of connectivity within our social networks affect the likelihood that initially undecided agents in a network converge on a (...) true opinion following group deliberation. The model incorporates a fine-grained and realistic representation of belief and trust, and it allows agents to consult outside information sources. We study a wide range of network structures and provide a detailed statistical analysis concerning the exact contribution of various network metrics to collective competence. Our results highlight and explain the collective risks involved in an overly networked or partitioned society. Specifically, we find that 96% of the variation in collective competence across networks can be attributed to differences in amount of connectivity and clustering, which are negatively correlated with collective competence. A study of bandwagon or “group think” effects indicates that both connectivity and clustering increase the probability that the network, wholly or partly, locks into a false opinion. Our work is interestingly related to Gerhard Schurz’s work on meta-induction and can be seen as broadly addressing a practical limitation of his approach. (shrink)

It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that all practical reasons are based on a person's given desires. I shall call any approach to practical reasons which accepts this assumption a "Humean approach". In spite of many criticisms, the Humean approach has numerous followers who take it to be the natural and inevitable view of practical reason. I will develop an argument against the Humean view aiming to explain its appeal, as well as to expose its mistake. (...) I focus on just one argument in favour of the Humean approach, which I believe can be constructed as the background idea of many Humean accounts: the argument from motivation. (shrink)

Background: Recent research has demonstrated that depressed individuals show impairments in inhibiting irrelevant emotional material, and that these impairments are linked to rumination. Cognitive inhibition, however, is not a unitary construct but consists of several components which operate at different stages of information processing. The present study was designed to assess two components of inhibition and examine their relation to depression and rumination in a sample of clinically depressed and healthy control participants. Methods: Twenty-two individuals diagnosed with a current depressive (...) episode and 27 never-disordered control participants completed an Emotional Flanker Task to assess individual differences in interference control and a modification of the Working Memory Selection Task to assess individual differences in the ability to discard no longer relevant emotional material from working memory. Participants completed self-report measures to assess depressive symptoms and rumination. Results: Clinically depressed compared to control participants showed significantly reduced interference control of irrelevant negative information. The groups, however, did not differ in their ability to discard no longer relevant negative information from working memory. In contrast, rumination was associated with difficulty removing no longer relevant negative material from working memory but not with deficits in interference control. Conclusions: Results highlight the importance of differentiating among components of inhibition to gain a better understanding of cognitive mechanisms underlying depression and rumination. (shrink)

In the article, we propose to frame organizational learning as inquiry into and resolving tensions arising from the performance of different commitments to work and its organizing. We expand learning as participation with its focus upon identity and membership to the development of work and the experiences and knowledge of its participants. The proposal is inspired by pragmatist philosophy both through its emphasis on learning as ascribing meaning to experience and its sociological version, symbolic interactionism with its emphasis on work (...) and its organizing in social arenas/worlds. We show that a pragmatist learning theory, founded on principles of non-dualistic, non-hierarchy, and a non-linear view on relations, thinking and practice aligns well with the proposed refurbished learning approach via complexity theory in this special issue. Further, we propose that Dewey’s pragmatism adds an important feature to a refurbished theory of learning in organizations by emphasizing the tensional and uncertain aspects of situations as contextual wholes that for a pragmatist learning theory constitute the analytical point of departure. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 602-620, July 2022.

Modern society makes extensive use of automated algorithmic decisions, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence. However, since these systems are not perfect, questions about fairness are increasingly investigated in the literature. In particular, many authors take a Rawlsian approach to algorithmic fairness. Based on complications with this approach identified in the literature, this article discusses how Rawls’s theory in general, and especially the difference principle, should reasonably be applied to algorithmic fairness decisions. It is observed that proposals to achieve Rawlsian (...) algorithmic fairness often aim to uphold the difference principle in the individual situations where automated decision-making occurs. However, the Rawlsian difference principle applies to society at large and does not aggregate in such a way that upholding it in constituent situations also upholds it in the aggregate. But such aggregation is a hidden premise of many proposals in the literature and its falsity explains many complications encountered. (shrink)

This article has two purposes. First, it aims to present a detailed analysis of the argument of “recognition” or even of the “fight for recognition”, which Hegel uses in his fragments from Jena treating of the system of philosophy, especially of the philosophy of spirit. It will be necessary to determine precedently by means of an exact interpretation the content of that expressions, in order to criticize and to compare, his original significance in Hegel with the theoretical application made by (...) Honneth. The special aim hereby is to correct and to explain the function of the “fight for recognition”, even in its sharpening significance as a “fight for life and death”, with relation to the genesis of the state of right. Second, the figure of “recognition” is related to Hegel’s Philosophy of right in the version of 1820. In this work, recognition participates in the theory of “institutions” which is analyzed by Honneth as well. Apart from the merits gained through the endeavour to introduce a classic philosophical theory into a conception of justice in society, we feel obliged to state an error in Honneth‘s interpretation in so far as he understands an institution as a simple social community of communication. For that reason, a conclusion based on a critical commentary can only include a negative recommendation, that means, not to follow those traces of interpretation but rather to defend and to consult the texts originally composed by Hegel. (shrink)

In order to evaluate the impact of contemporary grandparenting, the view should not be restricted to developmental achievement effects in grandchildren. Both child happiness and grandparent happiness are high-ranking goals with implications for public policy. The beneficial impact of grandparenting for risk families appears unequivocal, and modern life still encounters all kinds of unpredictable risks. Contemporary grandparental care is no evolutionary mismatch.

Der Kardinal Nikolaus von Kues bzw. Nicolaus Cusanus (1401 - 1464) war der bedeutendste Philosoph des 15. Jahrhunderts und zugleich einer der einflussreichsten Kirchenpolitiker seiner Zeit. Neben seiner rastlosen Tätigkeit als Advokat von Fürsten und Päpsten, als Fürstbischof von Brixen und Kurienkardinal verfasste er philosophisch-theologische Schriften von historischem Rang. Ihn interessierten die großen Köpfe der europäischen Geistesgeschichte und die Intellektuellen seiner Zeit genauso wie die Alltagsprobleme der Gläubigen seines Tiroler Bistums. Besondere Beachtung verdient zudem die Tatsache, dass er einen Großteil (...) seiner Schriften in Dialogform verfasste. Die 14 Beiträge dieses Bandes zeigen in exemplarischer Weise, dass Nikolaus von Kues sowohl ein Denker im Dialog als auch ein dialogischer Denker war. (shrink)

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics the notion of reality plays a central role. The present article focuses on the ethical implications of the Chalcedonian Christology underlying this concept. This approach is tied to the debate on the relationship between the universal and specific identity of Christian social ethics in public discourse. In the opening section the article outlines the pertinence of this debate with regard to Bonhoeffer's Christological ethic. In the following section the article analyzes Bonhoeffer's concept of reality and the (...) implied Chalcedonian traits. With this foundation established the article raises the question about its social ethical implications. The final part of the article argues that Bonhoeffer's ethics and ecclesiology cannot be separated from each other, explaining why Bonhoeffer's notion of reality leads to an assertion of the church's role in letting reality become real. In the light of Bonhoeffer's notion of reality the last section argues for the reconciliation of Christian witness and participation in public discourse. (shrink)

As more decisions are made by automated algorithmic systems, the transparency of these systems has come under scrutiny. While such transparency is typically seen as beneficial, there is a also a critical, Foucauldian account of it. From this perspective, worries have recently been articulated that algorithmic transparency can be used for manipulation, as part of a disciplinary power structure. Klenk (Philosophy & Technology 36, 79, 2023) recently argued that such manipulation should not be understood as exploitation of vulnerable victims, but (...) rather as indifference to whether the information provided enhances decision-making by revealing reasons. This short commentary on Klenk uses Berlin’s (1958) two concepts of liberty to further illuminate the concept of transparency as manipulation, finding alignment between positive liberty and the critical account. (shrink)

Bei Kant tauchen viele antike Autoren und Theorien auf. In dieser ersten Gesamtbearbeitung zum Thema wird gegen eine langjährige Forschungsmeinung gezeigt, dass nicht so sehr Platon und Aristoteles als vielmehr der hellenistischen Philosophie die entscheidende Rolle für sein Denken zukommt. Anhand der drei Kritiken werden Konstanzen und Umbrüche seines Antikeverständnisses herausgearbeitet und in ihren Konsequenzen für die Kantdeutung beleuchtet.

In this paper, I argue that a person can have a reason to do what she cannot do. In a nutshell, the argument is that a person can have derivate reasons relating to an action that she has a non-derivative reason to perform. There are clear examples of derivative reasons that a person has in cases where she cannot do what she (non-derivatively) has reason to do. She couldn’t have those derivative reasons, unless she also had the non-derivative reason to (...) do what she cannot do. I discuss a number of objections to this view, in particular two: (1) The objection that if there were reasons to do what one cannot do, many of those would be ‘crazy reasons’, and (2) the worry that if there were such reasons, then agents would have reasons to engage in futile deliberations and tryings. I develop an explanation of ‘crazy reasons’ that shows that not all reasons to do the impossible are crazy and only those that are need to be filtered out, and, regarding the second objecting, I show that the reasons for trying as well as for taking the means to doing something—instrumental reasons in a broad sense—are different from the reasons for performing the action in the first place. They are affected by impossibility, and we can explain why that is so. The view I argue for is that a person may have a reason to do what she cannot do, but she does not have a reason to try to do so or to take means to realizing the impossible. (shrink)

Concepts allow us to treat different objects equivalently according to shared attributes, and hence to communicate about, draw inferences from, reason with, and explain these objects. Understanding how concepts are formed and used is thus essential to understanding and applying these basic processes, and the topic of similarity-based classification is central to psychology, artificial intelligence, statistics, and philosophy. This book brings together leading researchers, reflecting the key topics and important developments in the field and provides a uniquely interdisciplinary overview of (...) the subject. (shrink)

It appears to be a feature of our ordinary understanding of morality that we ought not to act in certain ways at all. We ought not to kill, torture, deceive, break our promises (say)—exceptional circumstances apart. Many moral duties are thought of in this way. Killing another person would be wrong even if it achieved a great good, and even if it led to preventing the deaths of several others. This feature of moral thinking is at the core of deontological (...) ethics. But while it is also part and parcel of ordinary moral thought, it seems puzzling, because it requires an agent to act (or to abstain from acting) in certain ways, even if by violating the duty she could achieve a better outcome in terms of the very restriction that she is required to heed. If the explanation of the duty not to kill were that it preserves human life it would be hard to understand why killing is not morally permitted when it leads to preserving a greater number of lives. Moreover, why should we not violate a restriction if doing so leads to fewer violations of that very restriction? There are two questions here. (1) Why not violate a restriction whose point it is to preserve lives, if doing so leads to preserving a greater number of lives? (2) Why not violate a restriction if doing so minimizes the violation of that very restriction? The latter question concerns what is sometimes called ‘the paradox of deontology’ or the problem of ‘minimizing violations’. The former may concern the so-called trolley cases, for instance. After all, a trolley hurtling towards a number of innocent people is not about to violate the moral restriction on killing innocent people, as it is not the kind of thing that can be subject to such a restriction. In this paper I am concerned only with (2): the paradox of deontology. To put it in Nozick’s terms: ‘How can a concern for the nonviolation of C [i.e. some deontological constraint] lead to refusal to violate C even when this would prevent other more extensive violations of C? -/- Samuel Scheffler, puzzled by the same idea, put it in terms of ‘agent-centred restrictions’ (ACR), because the restriction requires an agent (not) to act in certain ways, contrasting thereby with a requirement that certain actions not be done. The restriction is thus an agent-relative rather than an agent-neutral one. Scheffler ended up rejecting the idea of agent-centred restrictions, as even on close investigation the puzzle would not dissolve. Scheffler maintains that ACRs have ‘an air of paradox’ to them, as they violate what he calls maximizing rationality. ACRs appear to clash with the idea of maximizing rationality, because they require an agent to choose the option that worse achieves her goal of not harming people. I call this, following common parlance, the paradox of deontology, even though it is not strictly speaking a paradox. Exploring whether there is really a problem here, and how it might be solved, is the main objective of this paper. I begin by explaining the puzzlement about agent-centred restrictions in more detail. I then discuss promising as an example of a kind of action which is thought to be subject to agent-centred restrictions. It turns out that they are surprisingly easy to explain. The difficult case is killing—and that should put us on guard. I argue that the problem is not with the very idea of deontological restrictions, but with puzzling aspects of the ethics of killing. (shrink)