The parsimonious consideration of research into food sharing among chimpanzees suggests that the type of social regulation found among our closest genetic relatives can best be understood as a form of morality. Morality is here defined from a naturalistic perspective as a system in which self-aware individuals interact through socially prescribed, psychologically realistic rules of conduct which provide these individuals with an awareness of how one ought to behave. The empirical markers of morality within chimpanzee communities and the traditional moral (...) traits to which they correspond are (1) self-awareness/agency; (2) calculated reciprocity/obligation; (3) moralistic aggression/blame; and (4) consolation/empathy. (shrink)

Standardly, mental properties like beliefs, desires, fears, etc. are analysed as relations between the agent, to whom the predicate is ascribed, and a proposition, which is the intentional content of this property. According to this relational analysis, having a thought implies having its content present to the mind. This has wide-ranging philosophical implications, e.g. for the possibility of children and animals having intentional mental properties, or for the problem of knowing one’s own thoughts. Further, according to the relational analysis, the (...) causal efficacy of mental properties must be in virtue of their content. This implies that folk-psychological explanations acquire a special status, for they employ mental properties as the explanans of behaviour. Mental properties can be conceived of as causally efficacious, and hence like standard scientific explanans, only if a satisfactory account is provided how they are causally efficacious in virtue of their semantic content. A successful account of this sort, I submit, does not exist as of yet; hence it seems, on the relational account, that folk psychological explanations are non-scientific, if they are explanations at all. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that it is not possible to determine the nature of epistemic justification apart from scientific psychological investigation. I call this view the strong thesis of methodological psychologism. Two sub-theses provide the primary support for this claim. The first sub-thesis is that no account of epistemic justification is correct which requires for the possession of at least one justified belief a psychological capacity which humans do not have. That is, the correct account (...) of epistemic justification must be psychologically realistic. The second sub-thesis is that it is not possible to determine whether an account of epistemic justification is psychologically realistic apart from scientific psychological investigation. After defending these subtheses, I point out some interesting consequences of the overall thesis which present a challenge to traditional epistemology. (shrink)

Psychology does not get rid of its problems by taking experience at its face value, for it is the province of psychology to study problems arising when experience is taken at its face value. Only in actual lived experience is concrete reality to be found in its fullest sense. All reality which is experience includes attributes both spatial and temporal. Objects cannot b7 considered in the first place apart from such attributes. Physical objects are perceived as parts of a total (...) situation and there is merit in the suggestion of the Gestalt psychologists. Always much will be found in the perceptum which will not correspond with the physical object, since the physical object is only an abstract. The effort to control our environment has led to a sophisticated attitude toward perceptual experience, which is said in psychological circles to lead to the stimulus error. Those who have seen children gradually grow into a realization of the unreliability of perception—for purposes of muscular manipulation—will understand what is meant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This paper argues for psychological realism in the conception of psychiatric disorders. We review the following contemporary ways of understanding the future of psychiatry: (1) psychiatric classification cannot be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should not be conceived of as biological kinds; (2) psychiatric classification can be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should be conceived of as biological kinds. Position (1) can lead either to instrumentalism or to eliminativism about psychiatry, depending on (...) whether psychiatric classification is regarded as useful. Position (2), which is inspired by the growing interest in neuroscience within scientific psychiatry, leads to biological realism or essentialism. In this paper we endorse a different realist position, which we label psychological realism. Psychiatric disorders are identified and addressed on the basis of their psychological manifestations which are often described as violations of epistemic, moral or social norms. A couple of examples are proposed by reference to the pathological aspects of delusions, and the factors contributing to their formation. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan argues in this book for a more psychologically realistic ethical reflection and spells out the ways in which psychology can enrich moral philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of such "moral saints" as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Oskar Schindler, Flanagan charts a middle course between an ethics that is too realistic and socially parochial and one that is too idealistic, giving no weight to our natures.

This commentary places Jussim in dialogue with sociological perspectives on social reality and the political-academic nature of scientific paradigms. Specifically, we highlight how institutions, observers, and what is being observed intersect, and discuss the implications of this intersection on measurement within the social world. We then identify similarities between Jussim's specific narrative regarding social perception research, with noted patterns of scientific change.

Utilitarianism has frequently been criticized for lacking psychological realism, but what this means and why it is thought to matter varies. This article distinguishes and examines three main relevant kinds of appeals to psychological realism: (a) A minimalist, self-avowedly metaethically neutral and empirically based ‘ought implies can’ approach, exemplified by Owen Flanagan. (b) Arguments from psychological costs and flourishing, exemplified by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams. (c) ‘Thick’ psychological realism, exemplified by Elizabeth Anscombe, (...) where a conception of human nature does not simply provide constraints on value theory, but forms the substantive basis on which it builds. The main challenge raised for utilitarianism turns out to be metaethical, not a matter of empirical psychology. The question is not so much whether utilitarianism can accommodate (putative) descriptive facts of human psychology as such, but what normative weight these facts should be given and why. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] Copyright of Utilitas is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to alls.). (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have identified a number of moral and psychological harms associated with the attention economy (Alysworth & Castro, 2021; Castro & Pham, 2020; Williams, 2018). Missing from many of these accounts of the attention economy, however, is what exactly attention is. As a result of this neglect of the cognitive science of attention, many of these accounts are not empirically credible. They rely on oversimplified and unsophisticated accounts of not only attention, but self- control, and addiction (...) as well. Of note are accounts of the attention economy that rely on the ‘brain disease’ rhetoric of addiction and subsequent control failures (Aylsworth & Castro, 2021; Bhargava & Velasquez, 2021), accounts that rely on a strict dichotomy of top-down vs. bottom-up attention (Williams, 2018; Aylsworth & Castro, 2021), and accounts that construe attention as a limited resource (Williams, 2018). -/- Drawing on recent work from the neuroscience and psychology of attention, I demonstrate the shortcomings of these accounts and sketch a way forward for an empirically grounded account of the attention economy. These accounts tend to uphold strict dichotomies of voluntary control (e.g., compulsion versus choice, dual-process models of self-control, and top-down versus bottom-up) that cannot account for the complexities of attentional control, mental agency, and decision-making. As such, these empirically and conceptually impoverished accounts cannot adequately address the current so-called crisis of attention. To better understand the harms associated with the attention economy, we need an empirically responsible account of the nature and function of attention and mental agency. (shrink)

Philosophers interested in the "paradox of self-Deception" have argued that self-Deception either (a) does not occur; (b) occurs but is unintelligible; or (c) can be explained by reference to sub-Components of a single personality. I argue that self-Deception can be explained as a variety of weakness of the will, Without the realist's mythology of dual or triple selves.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, frontline medical professionals at intensive care units around the world faced gruesome decisions about how to ration life-saving medical resources. These events provided a unique lens through which to understand how the public reasons about real-world dilemmas involving trade-offs between human lives. In three studies (total N = 2298), we examined people’s moral attitudes toward triage of acute coronavirus patients, and found elevated support for utilitarian triage policies. These utilitarian tendencies did not stem (...) from period change in moral attitudes relative to pre-pandemic levels--but rather, from the heightened realism of triage dilemmas. Participants favored utilitarian resolutions of critical care dilemmas when compared to structurally analogous, non-medical dilemmas—and such support was rooted in prosocial dispositions, including empathy and impartial beneficence. Finally, despite abundant evidence of political polarization surrounding Covid-19, moral views about critical care triage differed modestly, if at all, between liberals and conservatives. Taken together, our findings highlight people’s robust support for utilitarian measures in the face of a global public health threat, and illustrate how hypothetical scenarios in moral psychology (e.g. trolley cases) should strive for more experiential and psychological realism, otherwise their results might not generalize to real-world moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Folk psychological realism is the view that folk psychology is true and that people really do have propositional attitudes, whereas anti-realism is the view that folk psychology is false and people really do not have propositional attitudes. We argue that anti-realism is not worthy of acceptance and that realism is eminently worthy of acceptance. However, it is plainly epistemically possible to favor either of two forms of folk realism: scientific or non-scientific. We argue that (...) non-scientific realism, while perhaps unpopular among philosophers of mind, is a distinct form of realism from scientific realism, and that it is not yet knowable whether scientific or non-scientific realism is true. We also outline how adopting realism, but remaining neutral between scientific and non-scientific realism, offers fresh insights into such topics as instrumentalism, supervenience, the language of thought hypothesis, and elimin-ativism. (shrink)

The commentaries provided by Haig; Derksen and Morawski; and Trafimow vary considerably in how they address critical realism and its implications for replication. Haig’s preference for Kaidesoja’s “naturalised” version of critical realism and Lipton’s inference to the best explanation is deeply problematic. While Derksen and Morawski concede that they deal only indirectly with critical realism, their endorsement of “performativity” negates it. In Trafimow’s case, ontology’s regulative role is untenably diminished and ultimately supplanted by classic methodologism. I conclude (...) that replication should be replaced by exploratory stratified contextualism. (shrink)

This chapter explores the philosophical development of Alexander’s empiricism, interest in experimental psychology, and its connection to realism and its subsequent rise in the early twentieth century. His early interests are most notably his rejection of British idealism and an empiricist tendency derived in part from classical empiricism and empirical developments in psychology. It is argued that Alexander arrives at realism through his work on psychology, thus revealing that the rise of realism has some psychological origins. (...) His philosophical method is also analysed in detail and it is shown that many of his arguments should be understood as following this method and that many objections to his arguments for realism and against his theory of perception can be resisted when this method is taken into consideration. (shrink)

Most mainstream psychologists consider philosophy irrelevant to their work, but see themselves as realists. Various opposition movements embrace philosophy but reject realism, either completely or partially, despite upholding ideas consistent with a realist philosophy. Many on both sides see the Tower of Babel that constitutes psychology as a sign of healthy diversity, not fragmentation. We argue that relations among the three factors – philosophy, realism and fragmentation – deserve closer scrutiny. With philosophy’s core method of conceptual analysis deprioritized, (...) both mainstream psychology and the opposition fracture into an array of “partial realisms”, falling away from a realism that is thoroughly consistent. These are the source of psychology’s fragmentation. The conceptual neglect and resulting confusions can be seen in psychology’s recent replicability crisis, and in the widespread adoption of a representationalist approach to the mind/brain. We argue that the metatheoretical coherence and methodological maturity required for genuine scientific progress involves a consistent adherence to realism. We spell out what that involves and consider several reasons why this has been so difficult for psychology. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett (1991) has advanced a mild realism in which beliefs are described as patterns “discernible in agents' (observable) behavior” (p. 30). I clarify the conflict between this otherwise attractive theory and the strong realist view that beliefs are internal states that cause actions. Support for strong realism is sometimes derived from the assumption that the everyday psychology of the folk is committed to it. My main thesis here is that we have sufficient reason neither for strong (...) class='Hi'>realism nor for the supporting assumption about the commitments of folk psychology. Several generally implicit arguments in support of the latter assumption are considered. Explicit arguments for it by Ramsey et al. (1990) and Wellman (1990) are examined and judged unsuccessful. An explicit argument for strong realism by Cummins (in conversation) is also found inadequate. Consideration of this latter argument helps to explain why we cannot be satisfied with Dennett's own very brief discussion of causation by beliefs. (shrink)

Within the context of psychological measurement, realist commitments pervade methodology. Further, there are instances where particular scientific practices and decisions are explicable most plausibly against a background assumption of epistemic realism. That psychometrics is a realist enterprise provides a possible toehold for Stephen Jay Gould’s objections to psychometrics in The Mismeasure of Man and Joel Michell’s charges that psychometrics is a “pathological science.” These objections do not withstand scrutiny. There are no fewer than three activities in ongoing psychometric (...) research which presuppose a commitment to a minimal epistemic realism. Those activities include selecting between different models for representing data, estimating ability in the context of item response theory, and the move to make the individual the fundamental unit of analysis in psychometrics thereby calling for a shift in what sorts of data are evidentially relevant. In none of these activities are the commitments and disregard for evidence that Gould and Michell find objectionable or “pathological.”. (shrink)

This paper discusses some requirements on a folk-psychological, computational account of concepts. Although most psychological views take the folk-psychological stance that concept-possession requires capacities of both representation and classification, such views lack a philosophical context. In contrast, philosophically motivated views stress one of these capacities at the expense of the other. This paper seeks to provide some philosophical motivation for the (folk-) psychological stance. Philosophical and psychological constraints on a computational level account provide the context (...) for evaluating two theses. The first, the Classificatory View, is that concept-possession is constituted by the ability to classify states of the world. I argue, against this view, that to be able to classify, a thinker must also be able to represent the world. The second thesis, the Representational View, is that to possess a concept is constituted by the ability to represent the world. I argue that ascribing this ability is incoherent without ascribing an ability to classify. Hence, a detailed computational specification of concept-possession suggests that the folk-psychological stance is accurate. Philosophical views of concepts, (e.g. Fodor, 1987), adhering to one of the strong theses, whilst adverting to folk-psychological motivations, are thus both insufficiently complex and incoherent. (shrink)

This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment (...) and the acquisition of moral norms, when combined with a popular philosophical account of moral inquiry—the method of reflective equilibrium—undercut the anti-realist force of the moral disagreements that Doris et al. describe. I also show that Stich's recent attempt to provide further theoretical support for Doris et al.'s case is unsuccessful. (shrink)

In this original study, Jonathan Jacobs provides a new account of ethical realism that combines both abstract meta-ethical issues defining the debate on realism and concrete topics in moral psychology. Jacobs argues that practical reasoners can both understand the ethical significance of facts and be motivated to act by that understanding. In that sense, objective considerations are prescriptive. In his discussion of the theory of practical realism, he extends themes and claims originating in Aristotelian ethics while engaging (...) with the most important contemporary literature. Arguing that desire and reason can agree on what is good, Jacobs explains how good action is naturally pleasing to the agent. In acting well, the agent affirms certain values and enjoys doing so. Jacobs grounds his explanation of ethical value in detailed explorations of the moral psychology of self-love, friendship, and respect. Students and scholars of philosophy will be intrigued by this integrated account of meta-ethics, practical reason, and moral psychology. (shrink)

The discipline of psychology has been under-represented in the critical realist account of the relationship between structure and agency. In this paper a critical realist perspective of educational...

The use of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) in psychology has been under sustained attack, despite its reliable use in the notably successful, so-called "hard" areas of psychology, such as perception and cognition. I argue that, in contrast to merely methodological analyses of hypothesis testing (in terms of "test severity," or other confirmation-theoretic notions), only a patently metaphysical position can adequately capture the uneven but undeniable successes of theories in "hard psychology." I contend that Measured Realism satisfies this description, (...) and characterizes the role of NHST in hard psychology. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars, Idealism, and Realism is the first study of its kind to address a range of realist and idealist views inspired by psychological nominalism. Bringing together premier analytic realists and distinguished defenders of German idealism, it reveals why psychological nominalism is one of the most important theories of the mind to come out the 20th century. The theory, first put forward by Wilfrid Sellars, argues that language is the only means by which humans can learn the (...) types of socially shared practices that permit rationality. Although wedded to important aspects of German idealism, Sellars' theory is couched in bold realist terms of the analytic tradition. Those who are sympathetic to German idealism find this realist's appropriation of German idealism problematic. Wilfrid Sellars, Idealism and Realism thus creates a rare venue for realists and idealists to debate the epistemic outcome of the mental processes they both claim are essential to experience. Their resulting discussion bridges the gap between analytic and continental philosophy. In providing original and accessible chapters on psychological nominalism, this volume raises themes that intersect with numerous disciplines: the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. It also provides clarity on arguably the best available account of why humans can reason, be self-aware, know, and act as agents. (shrink)

The most puzzling and intriguing aspect of intuitionism as a philosophy of mathematics is its claim that classical deductive reasoning in mathematics is illegitimate. The two most well-known proponents of this position are L. E. J. Brouwer and Michael Dummett. Both of their criticisms of the use of classical logic in mathematics have, by and large, been taken to depend on the thesis that the principle of bivalence does not apply to mathematical statements; and the difference between these criticisms is (...) taken to consist in their grounds for this thesis. Brouwer bases this thesis on an account of the nature of mathematics: it is an activity of mental construction essentially independent of language. Dummett, in contrast, bases the thesis on his anti-realist view of the nature of meaning. ;My first principal argument in this essay shows that the conception of anti-realism just outlined is problematic as a reading of Dummett. To begin with, Dummett explicitly rejects, not only the evidentiary restrictions of this conception, but also, more seriously, the use of specific epistemological theses in a philosophical account of meaning. Moreover, I give an alternative account of anti-realism, consisting of alternative interpretations of the manifestation requirement and of the rejection of realist truth conditions, that do not rely on an epistemology of meaning, and hence, a fortiori, not on evidential restrictions. ;My second principal argument in this essay consists of drawing a consequence of this conception of anti-realism, namely, that the failure of bivalence cannot, by itself, support a cogent criticism of classical logic. The basic reason is that, given my view of anti-realism, the claim that the legitimacy of applying classical reasoning to a class of statements depends on whether bivalence applies to that class already implies that the system of deductive reasoning applying to these statements is non-classical. Hence an argument against classical logic based on this claim is question-begging. ;Finally, I conclude by showing that Dummett's criticism of classical reasoning, as reconstructed by my third argument, fails. (shrink)

Choice modellers are frequently criticized for failing to provide accurate representations of the neuro-psychological substrates of decisions. Several authors maintain that recent neuro-psychological findings enable choice modellers to overcome this alleged shortcoming. Some advocate a realistic interpretation of neuro-psychological models of choice, according to which these models posit sub-personal entities with specific neuro-psychological counterparts and characterize those entities accurately. In this article, I articulate and defend three complementary arguments to demonstrate that, contrary to emerging consensus, even (...) the best available neuro-psychological models of choice cannot be justifiably given this realistic interpretation. Moreover, I explicate what challenges will continue to hamper neuro-psychological modellers’ attempts to substantiate a realistic interpretation of their models. In doing so, I draw on the literature on scientific modelling to advance the ongoing philosophical discussion concerning the ontological status of the sub-personal entities posited in distinct decision sciences, the resemblance relations that supposedly connect choice models and the neuro-psychological substrates of decisions, and what conditions these models must satisfy to be regarded as realistic representations of their target systems. (shrink)

The paper offers a discussion of the views of intuitive realists on the philosophy of psychology, which the author sees as related to their respective philosophical conceptions. According to the author there were no responses to the intuitivist interpretation of the psychic phenomena from the side of the psychologists of that time. The responses came, however, from the philosophers S. Felber and I. Hrušovský, who criticized the views of O. Losski and J. Dieška immediately after their being published. The psychology (...) of intuitive realism is voluntaristic, closely related to Losski’s ontology. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of new, published and revised essays, providing a distinctive, thoroughgoing, realist approach to contemporary psychological theories, concepts, methods, and applications. The essays also offer critical analyses of antirealist trends both in and outside of mainstream psychology.

The discipline of psychology has been poorly represented in critical realist texts to date. This is despite Bhaskar’s use of psychoanalytical concepts to underpin his concept of the dialectic. By comparison, other aspects of social science, such as sociology and economics, have a well-established body of critical realist texts. The original approach to psychoanalysis was analogous to the critical realist ontological-axiological chain. It moved from an ontological problem to an axiological solution. Freud’s eagerness to reframe psychoanalysis within a scientistic, objective (...) framework was perhaps due in part to the difficulties that he faced as European Jew in the fin-de-siècle. The application of the critical realist explanatory critique can contribute to our understanding of how and why the fragmentation of Freud’s legacies emerged. Critical realists should avoid the assumption that psychoanalysis is a unitary body of knowledge; as such, they should consider its various legacies separately. (shrink)

Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussion of that issue. I contend that (...) their explorations leave the issue unresolved. To break the stalemate, I appeal to empirical psychological findings about moral internalization—the process by which children acquire the capacity to act in terms of moral norms. I contend that these findings illuminate the issue, suggest a way to advance it, and tend to support a moral realist position. (shrink)

Scholars of ideology in social-scientific disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and political science, stand to benefit from taking seriously the philosophical contributions of Professor Peter Railton. This is because Railton provides much-needed conceptual precision—and a rare sense of epistemological and moral clarity—to a topic that is notoriously slippery and prone to relativistic musing and the drawing of false equivalences. In an essay entitled “Morality, Ideology, and Reflection: Or, the Duck Sits Yet,” Railton (2000/2003) aptly identified the purpose of ideological analysis as (...) the unmasking of “nonepistemic” interests—that is, interests other than truth-seeking, accuracy, or warrant —that contribute to the development, adoption, and dissemination of political and religious belief systems. (shrink)

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioral sciences. This book introduces a novel version of scientific realism, Measured Realism, that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. It proposes a theory of measurement, Population-Guided Estimation, that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry. Presenting quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences as at once successful and regulated by (...) the world, the book will engage philosophers of science, historians of science, sociologists of science, and scientists interested in the foundations of their own disciplines. Part I introduces measured realism beginning with a novel realist theory of measurement (Population-Guided Estimation, or PGE). It examines two other versions of scientific realism — minimal (Hacking) and robust (Boyd, Putnam, and Newton-Smith) — and advances measured realism as best supported by the evidence in the behavioral sciences. It also critically evaluates the anti-realist arguments of van Fraassen, Laudan, and Fine. Part II formulates and develops a version of epistemological naturalism most appropriate to measured realism. Drawing upon the realist theory of measurement developed earlier, it favorably appraises a variety of statistical methods in the behavioral sciences against selected criticisms. It concludes that traditional, narrative methods in the behavioral and social sciences are unreliable by the measures of epistemological naturalism. (shrink)

The political psychologists Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith accuse orthodox moral foundations theory of predicting what is already intrinsic to the theory, namely that moral beliefs influence political decision-making. The authors argue that, first, political psychology must start from a position which treats political and moral beliefs as equals so as to avoid self-justificatory theorising, and second, that such an analysis provides stronger evidence for political attitudes predicting moral attitudes than vice versa. I take this empirical result as a starting point (...) to intervene in a debate in contemporary normative political theory which has, to my mind, become largely unwieldy: the political realism controversy. I advise the realists to ‘downplay’ the (thus far) inconclusive debate over realism’s metanormative standing in favour of a non-metanormative inquiry. Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith’s study makes for an excellent backdrop. It affirms the realist hypothesis that politics is in some relevant sense – a causal, psychological sense – prior to morality. (shrink)

In this brief but insightful volume, the author presents and defends a version of ethical realism that he calls practical realism. Asserting that "moral claims are literally true or false and that their truth-values depend upon the facts", Jacobs argues that these facts are prescriptive for practical reasoners through the human capacity of practical reasoning. "My purpose is to explicate and illustrate how reason in its practical employment can understand the ethical significance of facts about human nature and (...) social life.... My main claim is that practical reasoning can achieve a substantive understanding of the ethical significance of facts and that this understanding can be action-guiding". (shrink)

Many metaethicists agree that as ordinary people experience morality as a realm of objective truths, we have a prima facie reason to believe that it actually is such a realm. Recently, worries have been raised about the validity of the extant psychological research on this argument’s empirical hypothesis. Our aim is to advance this research, taking these worries into account. First, we propose a new experimental design for measuring folk intuitions about moral objectivity that may serve as an inspiration (...) for future studies. Then we report and discuss the results of a survey that was based on this design. In our study, most of our participants denied the existence of objective truths about most or all moral issues. In particular, many of them had the intuition that whether moral sentences are true depends both on their own moral beliefs and on the dominant moral beliefs within their culture. This finding suggests that the realist presumptive argument may have to be rejected and that instead anti-realism may have a presumption in its favor. (shrink)

In order to examine the fit between realism and science, one needs to address two issues: the unit of science question (realism about which parts of science?) and the contents of realism question (which realism about science?). Answering these questions is a matter of conceptual and empirical inquiry by way local case studies. Instead of the more ordinary abstract and global scientific realism, what we get is a doubly local scientific realism based on a (...) bottom-up strategy. Representative formulations of the former kind are in terms of the truth and reality of the posits of current science, in terms of warranted belief, in terms of mind-independent unobservable entities. Using illustrations mainly from the social sciences, doubly local scientific realism denies the global applicability of such formulations and seeks to make adjustments in their elements in response to information about local units of science: It is sufficient for a realist to give the existence of an entity (and the truth of a theory) a chance, while in some areas we may be in s position to make justified claims about actual existence (and truth). Logical inquiry-independent existence is sufficient for the social and human sciences, while mind-independence will be fine for many other domains. It should not be insisted that the theoretical posits of realist science be strict unobservables in all areas: most theoretical posits of the social sciences are idealized commonsensibles, such as elements in folk psychology. Unsurprisingly, this sort of local strategy will create space for realism that is able to accommodate larger areas of science without sacrificing traditional realist intuitions. (shrink)

Standard proposals of scientific anti-realism assume that the methodology of a scientific research program can be endorsed without accepting its metaphysical commitments. I argue that the distinction between competence, the rules governing one’s language faculty, and performance, or linguistic behavior, precludes this. Linguistic theories aim to describe competence, not performance, and so must be able to distinguish observations reflective of the former from those reflective of the latter. This classification of data makes sense only against the background of a (...) psychologically realistic view of linguistic theory. So the very methodology of the science commits one to its realistic interpretation. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of how democratic governance is possible. It analyses democracy as a laminated system consisting of three interdependent levels – the political/institutional, the social/interactional, and the psychological/intrapsychic – each of which is necessary for the others to exist. Each level is subject to a regulatory principle that is necessary for it to function appropriately. At the political/institutional level, competing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of ‘loser’s consent,’ in which the losing party (...) must agree to cede power to the winning party. At the social/interactional level individuals from opposing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of a superordinate identity as citizen, which allows them to transcend their partisan political identities. At the psychological/intrapsychic level individuals must be governed by the regulatory principle of mutuality/thirdness which allows the possibility of an alternative to the binary identities that result from the doer/done-to position. (shrink)

In "Religious Realism," I trace the realism/nonrealism debate in religion, arguing that although religions are psychological and sociological phenomena, they make truth-claims about reality. I develop the epistemic religious nonrealism of Buddhism an contrast it with Christian realism, focusing particularly on Thomas Morris's treatment of the incarnation. In the end I argument that realism matters because of the content of religion, the importance of making truth claims, and for resolving the human predicament.

In recent decades, a ‘realist’ alternative to ideal theories of politics has slowly taken shape. Bringing together philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists, this countermovement seeks to reframe inquiry into politics and political norms. Among the hallmarks of this endeavor are a moral psychology that includes the passions and emotions; a robust conception of political possibility and rejection of utopian thinking; the belief that political conflict — of values as well as interests — is both fundamental and ineradicable; a focus (...) on institutions as the arenas within which conflict is mediated and contained; and a conception of politics as a sphere of activity that is distinct, autonomous, and subject to norms that cannot be derived from individual morality. For political realists, a ‘well-ordered society’ is rarely attainable; a modus vivendi without agreement on first principles is often the only practical possibility. Not only will ‘full compliance’ never be achieved, but also it is an assumption that yields misleading accounts of political norms. While realists offer a number of compelling criticisms of ideal theory, there are some lacunae in their stance. It is not yet clear whether realism constitutes a coherent affirmative alternative to idealism. Nor have realists clarified the extent of conflict that is consistent with political order as such. And because both sides accept ‘ought implies can’ as a constraint on the validity of political norms, much of the debate between realists and idealists revolves around deep empirical disagreements that are yet to be clarified. (shrink)