Logical fallacies as informational shortcuts

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer DOI: 10.1007/s11229-008-9410-yThe paper argues that the two best known formal logical fallacies, namely denying the antecedent (DA) and affirming the consequent (AC) are not just basic and simple errors, which prove human irrationality, but rather informational shortcuts, which may provide a quick and dirty way of extracting useful information from the environment. DA and AC are shown to be degraded versions of Bayes’ theorem, once this is stripped of some of its probabilities. The less the probabilities count, the closer these fallacies become to a reasoning that is not only informationally useful but also logically valid.Peer reviewe

Denying the antecedent:The fallacy that never was, or sometimes isn't?

Abstract: In this paper we examine two challenges to the orthodox understanding of the fallacy of denying the antecedent. One challenge is to say that passages thought to express the fallacy can usually be given an interpretation on which they express valid arguments, entitling us to query whether the fallacy is commonly, if ever, committed at all. We discuss this claim in Section 1. The second challenge comes from those who think that there are legitimate uses of denying the antecedent that have traditionally been overlooked. In Section 2 we propose a general test for claims of this sort, and assess three versions of this view

Logic, Reasoning, Argumentation: Insights from the Wild

This article provides a brief selective overview and discussion of recent research into natural language argumentation that may inform the study of human reasoning on the assumption that an episode of argumentation issues an invitation to accept a corresponding inference. As this research shows, arguers typically seek to establish new consequences based on prior information. And they typically do so vis-à-vis a real or an imagined opponent, or an opponent-position, in ways that remain sensitive to considerations of context, audiences, and goals. Deductively valid inferences remain a limiting case of such reasoning. In view of these insights, it may appear less surprising that allegedly “irrational” behavior can regularly be produced in experimental settings that expose subjects to standardized reasoning tasks

Information and Design: Book Symposium on Luciano Floridi’s The Logic of Information

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas

Subjective Moral Biases & Fallacies: Developing Scientifically & Practically Adequate Moral Analogues of Cognitive Heuristics & Biases

In this dissertation, I construct scientifically and practically adequate moral analogs of cognitive heuristics and biases. Cognitive heuristics are reasoning “shortcuts” that are efficient but flawed. Such flaws yield systematic judgment errors—i.e., cognitive biases. For example, the availability heuristic infers an event’s probability by seeing how easy it is to recall similar events. Since dramatic events, such as airplane crashes, are disproportionately easy to recall, this heuristic explains systematic overestimations of their probability (availability bias). The research program on cognitive heuristics and biases (e.g., Daniel Kahneman’s work) has been scientifically successful and has yielded useful error-prevention techniques—i.e., cognitive debiasing. I attempt to apply this framework to moral reasoning to yield moral heuristics and biases. For instance, a moral bias of unjustified differences in the treatment of particular animal species might be partially explained by a moral heuristic that dubiously infers animals’ moral status from their aesthetic features. While the basis for identifying judgments as cognitive errors is often unassailable (e.g., per violating laws of logic), identifying moral errors seemingly requires appealing to moral truth, which, I argue, is problematic within science. Such appeals can be avoided by repackaging moral theories as mere “standards-of-interest” (a la non-normative metrics of purportedly right-making features/properties). However, standards-of-interest do not provide authority, which is needed for effective debiasing. Nevertheless, since each person deems their own subjective morality authoritative, subjective morality (qua standard-of-interest and not moral subjectivism) satisfies both scientific and practical concerns. As such, (idealized) subjective morality grounds a moral analog of cognitive biases—namely, subjective moral biases (e.g., committed anti-racists unconsciously discriminating). I also argue that "cognitive heuristic" is defined by its contrast with rationality. Consequently, heuristics explain biases, which are also so defined. However, such contrasting with rationality is causally irrelevant to cognition. This frustrates the presumed usefulness of the kind, heuristic, in causal explanation. As such, in the moral case, I jettison the role of causal explanation and tailor categories solely for contrastive explanation. As such, “moral heuristic” is replaced with "subjective moral fallacy," which is defined by its contrast with subjective morality and explains subjective moral biases. The resultant subjective moral biases and fallacies framework can undergird future empirical research

A Behavioral Framework for Securities Risk

This article provides the first critical analysis and redesign of the existing securities risk disclosure framework given new insights from the emerging, interdisciplinary field of behavioral economics. Disclosure is the principle at the heart of federal securities regulation. Beneath that core principle of disclosure is the basic assumption that the reasonable investor is the idealized über-rational person of neoclassical economic theory. Therefore, once armed with the requisite information investors presumably can protect themselves through rational choice. Descriptively, however, real investors are not like their rational, neoclassical kin. This article examines this incongruence between the idealized rational investor and the imperfect actual investor, explores the consequences of this incongruence on risk assessment in investments, and highlights several shortcomings of risk disclosures as a result of it. Then, to address these shortcomings, this article argues for a better capture of the advantages of disclosure-based risk regulations, and proposes a new behavioral framework for securities risk disclosure built on relative likelihood and relative impact of dynamic risks. In doing so, this article challenges the conventional wisdom that securities risk management should be done primarily through increased government oversight and enforcement, and promotes the underappreciated utility of disclosure as a powerful, complementary risk management tool in the modern financial regulatory landscape. In advocacy of this contention, this article closes with a discussion of key implications of the proposed framework, namely how it could improve disclosure drafting, simplify transparency, increase financial literacy, lower information costs, and enhance financial arbitrage

A Behavioral Framework for Securities Risk

This Article provides the first critical analysis and redesign of the existing securities risk disclosure framework given new insights from the emerging, interdisciplinary field of behavioral economics. Disclosure is the principle at the heart of federal securities regulation. Beneath that core principle of disclosure is the basic assumption that the reasonable investor is the idealized über-rational person of neoclassical economic theory. Therefore, once armed with the requisite information investors presumably can protect themselves through rational choice. Descriptively, however, real investors are not like their rational, neoclassical kin. This Article examines this incongruence between the idealized rational investor and the imperfect actual investor, explores the consequences of this incongruence on risk assessment in investments, and highlights several shortcomings of risk disclosures as a result of it. Then, to address these shortcomings, this Article argues for a better capture of the advantages of disclosure-based risk regulations, and proposes a new behavioral framework for securities risk disclosure built on relative likelihood and relative impact of dynamic risks. In doing so, this Article challenges the conventional wisdom that securities risk management should be done primarily through increased government oversight and enforcement, and promotes the underappreciated utility of disclosure as a powerful, complementary risk management tool in the modern financial regulatory landscape. In advocacy of this contention, this Article closes with a discussion of key implications of the proposed framework, namely how it could improve disclosure drafting, simplify transparency, increase financial literacy, lower information costs, and enhance financial arbitrage

The intersection of literacy and digital literacy: incorporating writing standards with computer technology standards

This project aims to increase access to computer science/computer technology education by providing teachers resources to enable them to teach computer science/computer technology. A survey was taken to discover the interests and needs of teachers in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The project resulted in the creation of several lesson plans that integrate English and computer science through hands-on web development exercises, computational thinking opportunities, and critical thinking

Unicameralism versus bicameralism revisited: the case of Romania

In the midst of a public debate over the governing majority's project of a Constitution revision, the present paper revisits the unicameralism versus bicameralism debate, a classic one within the disciplinary fields of Constitutional Law and Political Science, and explores its relevance and applicability to Romania's current bicameral legislature. The research starts with an empirical approach, focused on the European area, of some theses more or less shared by field scholars regarding certain correlations between Parliament structure and other state-related variables, while also exploring worldwide trends, in an attempt to later on contextualize the Romanian case in both descriptive and explicative terms. Necessarily preconditioned by the employment of a conceptual framework meant to capture the considerable variety of contemporary bicameral legislatures, the subsequent debate is structured along nine major comparative analysis criteria ideally usable as legislative performance indicators. The final part addresses Romania's Parliament accordingly, from the historical background of its bicameral structure, to a detailed evaluation of its strength and weaknesses

Manipulation and the First Amendment

This Article examines new conceptual tools for understanding manipulation and its harms. More specifically, Part I draws from ethicists\u27 insights to explain how manipulation can inflict harms distinct from those imposed by coercion and deception, and to explain why addressing these distinct harms is a government interest sufficiently strong to justify appropriately tailored interventions. Part II explores how these conceptual tools also help us understand when, how, and why government can regulate manipulation consistent with the First Amendment. As a threshold matter, note that manipulative online interfaces and related design choices may be better understood as conduct, rather than speech protected by the First Amendment. When we recall that the First Amendment fails to cover, much less protect, every use of language, one can plausibly understand the First Amendment\u27s coverage to exclude data collection and the use of algorithms (that is, instructions to machines) because they do things rather than say things. This important possibility deserves attention and consideration. This Article, however, assumes arguendo that courts may characterize the sorts of manipulative practices discussed here as speech covered by the First Amendment, and then explores the constitutional implications of that assumption. This abstract has been adapted from the author\u27s introduction