Substantive irrationality in cognitive systems

International audienceIn this paper we approach both procedural and substantive irrationality of artificial agent cognitive systems and consider that when it is not possible for an agent to make a logical inference (too expensive cognitive effort or not enough knowledge) she might replace certain parts of the logical reasoning with mere associations

Aha? Is Creativity Possible in Legal Problem Solving and Teachable in Legal Education?

This article continues and expands on my earlier project of seeking to describe how legal negotiation should be understood conceptually and undertaken behaviorally to produce better solutions to legal problems. As structured problem solving requires interests, needs and objectives identification, so too must creative solution seeking have its structure and elements in order to be effectively taught. Because research and teaching about creativity and how we think has expanded greatly since modern legal negotiation theory has been developed, it is now especially appropriate to examine how we might harness this new learning to how we might examine and teach legal creativity in the context of legal negotiation and problem solving. This article explores both the cognitive and behavioral dimensions of legal creativity and offers suggestions for how it can be taught more effectively in legal education, both within the more narrow curricula of negotiation courses and more generally throughout legal education

The Emotivism of Law. Systematic Irrationality, Imagined Orders, and the Spirit of Decision Making

The process of decision making is predictable and irrational according to Daniel Ariely and other economic behaviorists, historians, and philosophers such as Daniel Kahneman or Yuval Noah Harari. Decisions made anteriorly can be, but don’t have to be, present in the actions of a person. Stories and shared belief in myths, especially those that arise from a system of human norms and values and are based on a belief in a “supernatural” order (religion) are important. Because of this, mass cooperation amongst strangers is possible

Mental Capacity and Decisional Autonomy: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

With the waves of reform occurring in mental health legislation in England and other jurisdictions, mental capacity is set to become a key medico-legal concept. The concept is central to the law of informed consent and is closely aligned to the philosophical concept of autonomy. It is also closely related to mental disorder. This paper explores the interdisciplinary terrain where mental capacity is located. Our aim is to identify core dilemmas and to suggest pathways for future interdisciplinary research. The terrain can be separated into three types of discussion: philosophical, legal and psychiatric. Each discussion approaches mental capacity and judgmental autonomy from a different perspective yet each discussion struggles over two key dilemmas: whether mental capacity and autonomy is/should be a moral or a psychological notion and whether rationality is the key constitutive factor. We suggest that further theoretical work will have to be interdisciplinary and that this work offers an opportunity for the law to enrich its interpretation of mental capacity, for psychiatry to clarify the normative elements latent in its concepts and for philosophy to advance understanding of autonomy through the study of decisional dysfunction. The new pressures on medical and legal practice to be more explicit about mental capacity make this work a priority

What is (In)coherence?

Recent work on rationality has been increasingly attentive to “coherence requirements”, with heated debates about both the content of such requirements and their normative status (e.g., whether there is necessarily reason to comply with them). Yet there is little to no work on the metanormative status of coherence requirements. Metaphysically: what is it for two or more mental states to be jointly incoherent, such that they are banned by a coherence requirement? In virtue of what are some putative requirements genuine and others not? Epistemologically: how are we to know which of the requirements are genuine and which aren’t? This paper tries to offer an account that answers these questions. On my account, the incoherence of a set of attitudinal mental states is a matter of its being (partially) constitutive of the mental states in question that, for any agent that holds these attitudes jointly, the agent is disposed, when conditions of full transparency are met, to give up at least one of the attitudes

Embodied Akrasia: James on Motivation and Weakness of Will

This paper presents an account of akrasia, drawn from the work of William James, that sees akrasia as neither a rational failing (as with most philosophical accounts) nor a moral failing (as with early Christian accounts), but rather a necessary by-product of our status as biological beings. By examining James’s related accounts of motivation and action, I argue that akratic actions occur when an agent attempts to act against her settled habits, but fails to do so. This makes akrasia a product of the agent’s practical failure to adequately structured her environment to bring about her desired action. Akratic action performs the vital function of revealing to the agent the exact point at which her cognitive effort was insufficient for bringing about her intended action. It also reveals that future improvement is within her control. As such, akratic action is the very foundation of James’s meliorism

Negation, expressivism, and intentionality

Many think that expressivists have a special problem with negation. I disagree. For if there is a problem with negation, I argue, it is a problem shared by those who accept some plausible claims about the nature of intentionality. Whether there is any special problem for expressivists turns, I will argue, on whether facts about what truth-conditions beliefs have can explain facts about basic inferential relations among those beliefs. And I will suggest that the answer to this last question is, on most plausible attempts at solving the problem of intentionality, ‘no’

Funding Irrationality

This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that claimants in class action settlement funds and other settlement funds make independent and rational settlement decisions. Cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists have long examined the way people make judgments and choices. Such studies show that decisionmakers routinely change their minds based on their view of the status quo, the timing of the decision, and the presence of seemingly irrelevant choices. Because of these cognitive biases, people will buy things they do not want, save too little for retirement, and make risky choices about their health and well-being based on the timing, context, and framing of the decision. Applying findings from cognitive psychology, I argue that people will make the same kinds of irrational decisions about their settlement options in a large settlement fund. As a result, cognitive biases threaten to undermine many of the stated purposes of large settlement funds-to provide claimants with access, efficiency, and equity superior to what they could obtain in traditional litigation. Accordingly, fund designers -judges, lawmakers, and special masters-should adjust settlement procedures to account for cognitive bias. I call this process funding irrationality -identifying and, in some cases, capitalizing on people\u27s cognitive biases in large settlement funds by altering the context, timing, and sequence of their settlement options. Fund designers, however, should avoid reforms that unduly eliminate settlement options, or that impose excessive administrative costs. Rather, the benefits of any reform-preventing avoidable harm to irrational claimants-must outweigh the potential costs, including the value of client autonomy, the chance of error, and the burden on the courts and public administrators

The Behavioral Paradox: Why Investor Irrationality Calls for Lighter and Simpler Financial Regulation

It is widely believed that behavioral economics justifies more intrusive regulation of financial markets, because people are not fully rational and need to be protected from their quirks. This Article challenges that belief. Firstly, insofar as people can be helped to make better choices, that goal can usually be achieved through light-touch regulations. Secondly, faulty perceptions about markets seem to be best corrected through market-based solutions. Thirdly, increasing regulation does not seem to solve problems caused by lack of market discipline, pricing inefficiencies, and financial innovation; better results may be achieved with freer markets and simpler rules. Fourthly, regulatory rule makers are subject to imperfect rationality, which tends to reduce the quality of regulatory intervention. Finally, regulatory complexity exacerbates the harmful effects of bounded rationality, whereas simple and stable rules give rise to positive learning effects

Economics of gift - positivity of justice : the mutual paranoia of Jacques Derrida and Niklas Luhmann

S.a. Deutsche Fassung: Ökonomie der Gabe - Positivität der Gerechtigkeit: Gegenseitige Heimsuchungen von System und différance. In: Albrecht Koschorke und Cornelia Vismann (Hg.) System - Macht - Kultur: Probleme der Systemtheorie. Akademie, Berlin 1999, 199-212. Auch auf unserem Server vorhanden. * Italienische Fassung: Economia del dono, positività della giustizia: la reciproca paranoia di Jacques Derrida e Niklas Luhmann. Sociologia e politiche sociali 6, 2003, 113-130. Portugiesische Fassung: Economia da dádiva ? posividade da rustica; ?assombracao?? mutua entre sistema e différance. In: Gunther Teubner, Direito, Sistema, Policontexturalidade, Editora Unimep, Piracicaba Sao Paolo, Brasil 2005, 55-78