National Institute of Mental Health Roundtable Discussion: Promissory Notes and Prevailing Norms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research

Most workshops convened by the National Institute's of Health are devoted to the puzzle-solving activities of normal science, where the puzzles themselves and the strategies available for solving them are determined largely in advance by the shared paradigmatic assumptions, frameworks, and priorities of the scientific community's research paradigm. They are designed to facilitate what Thomas Kuhn referred to as elucidating topological detail within a map whose main outlines are available in advance. And apparently for good reason. Historical studies by Kuhn and others reveal that science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply when its practitioners work within well-defined and deeply ingrained traditions and employ the concepts, theories, methods, and tools of a shared paradigm. No paradigm is perfect and none is capable of identifying, let alone solving, all of the problems relevant to a given domain of inquiry. Thus, the essential day-to-day business of normal science is not to question the limits or adequacy of a given paradigm, but rather to exploit the presumed virtues for which it was adopted. As Kuhn cautioned in his discussion of paradigms, re-tooling, in science as in manufacture, as an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. Well, as the marketing people say --- this is not your father's Oldsmobile. We are breaking with tradition today by stepping outside the map to initiate and pursue a long-overdue dialogue about paradigm reform and scientific retooling. Our warrant for prosecuting this agenda is a Kuhnian occasion that demands it--- is a protracted paradigm crisis, the neglect of which has hurt us terribly and the resolution of which will determine the viability and fate of the social and behavioral sciences in the 21st century. Since the details of the crisis are well know within and outside our ranks, a brief sketch of its main outlines will suffice as a framework for our dialogue today. They include, (a) widespread dissatisfaction with the meager theoretical progress and practical yield of more than a century of social and behavioral sciences research in many substantive domains, (b) long-neglected yet widely recognized deficiencies in the epistemological assumptions, discovery practices and justification standards of the dominant paradigm on which the social and behavioral sciences have relied --- and rely--- to conceptualize, interpret, and guide their empirical research, (c) a broadly based consensus among leading scholars and scientists about the need for fundamental paradigm reforms, and (d) institutional incentive structures that not only encourage and reinforce the status quo but discourage constructive reform efforts. Our objective for the next eight hours is to formulate strategies and recommendations for leveraging the resources and influence of the National Institute of Mental Health to foster a climate of constructive reforms where they are needed by freeing investigators in from the oppressive constraints of existing paradigms and facilitating, encouraging, and funding their retooling their effort

Is Inquiry Learning Unjust? An Ethical Defense of Deweyan Instructional Design

A long tradition of progressive pedagogy, running from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and through the work of John Dewey, argues that it is ethically and politically important for students to learn to co-direct the process of inquiry. In a series of recent articles, a group of cognitive scientists (hereafter called ‘DI theorists’) has argued that due to the nature of human cognitive architecture, student-led instructional designs are likely to be less effective than fully teacher-led instructional designs and to exacerbate achievement gaps. Were DI theorists correct, contrary to the intentions of many educators, a great deal of progressive pedagogy would be likely to have negative effects on educational justice. In this dissertation, I argue that the framing of the debate in cognitive science misconstrues the ethical and political value of treating students as cooperative designers of educative experiences. To defend this controversial claim, I advance a Deweyan approach to ethics and justice in instructional design against two recent philosophical challenges. The first challenge, which I call ‘Dewey’s grounding problem’, asserts that Dewey’s appeal to the single ethical and political value of learning is unjustified against dissent and oppressive of reasonable pluralism. The second challenge, which I call ‘Dewey’s problem of elitism’, argues that his call to promote the common good of learning in ethics and politics will sometimes permit or require elitism, aristocracy, or tyranny. Based on the Deweyan ethos I defend, I trace four principles of just instructional design to reassess the claims of DI theorists. I argue that integrating DI theorists’ insights about efficacy and equality as means to create a student co-led community of inquiry confirms many educators’ intuitions: that student-led designs are important parts of developing the skills of inquiry, are well placed as culminating tasks, and are best phased in on a developmental pathway towards greater student independence

The instrumental value of deliberative democracy – or, do we have good reasons to be deliberative democrats?

Though commanding a prominent role in political theory, deliberative democracy has also become a mainstay of myriad other research traditions in recent years. This diffusion has been propelled along by the notion that deliberation, properly conceived and enacted, generates many beneficial outcomes. This article has three goals geared toward understanding whether these instrumental benefits provide us with good reasons – beyond intrinsic ones – to be deliberative democrats. First, the proclaimed instrumental benefits are systematized in terms of micro, meso, and macro outcomes. Second, relevant literatures are canvassed to critically assess what we know – and what we do not know – about deliberation’s effects. Finally, the instrumental benefits of deliberation are recast in light of the ongoing systemic turn in deliberative theory. This article adds to our theoretical understanding of deliberation’s promises and pitfalls, and helps practitioners identify gaps in our knowledge concerning how deliberation works and what its wider societal implications might be

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis

"Welfare polls" are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three "welfare polling" formats are dominant: contingent-valuation surveys, QALY surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists. This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the actual and potential uses of welfare polls in government decision making. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and concludes that they can be genuinely informative. Part IV synthesizes the case for welfare polls, arguing against two types of challenges: the revealed-preference tradition in economics, which insists on using behavior rather than surveys to learn about well-being; and the civic-republican tradition in political theory, which accepts surveys but insists that respondents should be asked to take a "citizen", rather than "consumer" perspective. Part V suggests new directions for welfare polls.

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis

Welfare polls are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three welfare polling formats are dominant: contingent valuation (CV) surveys, quality-adjusted life year (QALY) surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists.This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the current and potential uses of welfare polls in governmental decisionmaking. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and concludes that they can be genuinely informative. Part IV synthesizes the case for welfare polls, arguing against two types of challenges: the revealed-preference tradition in economics, which insists on using behavior rather than surveys to learn about well-being; and the civic republican tradition in political theory, which accepts surveys but insists that respondents should be asked to take a citizen rather than consumer perspective. Part V suggests new directions for welfare polls

Corporate Autonomy: Law, Constitutional Democracy, and the Rights of Big Business

Corporate Autonomy: Law, Constitutional Democracy, and the Rights of Big Business is a normative, interdisciplinary and analytical examination of the rights and internal governance of business corporations in constitutional liberal democracies. Drawing from political theory, economics and law, it concludes that corporations should not merit legal protections unless they first exhibit some internal democratic credentials. In contrast to theories of collective moral personhood, I argue that the question of corporate ontology should not determine the kinds of legal rights it can claim. Rather, following Dewey (1926) and Habermas (1996), I maintain that the law, as a reflection of popular sovereignty, should respond flexibly to shifting social configurations by defending the principle of equal human worth (Arendt) regardless of whether or not corporations are properly understood as “real” entities with a will of their own, aggregations of individual rights-holders, or state-created legal fictions. I argue that corporations can make a prima facie case for legal autonomy rights based upon human beings’ associational freedoms. I then conclude that corporate legal autonomy rights are more likely to vindicate associational liberty if corporations first exhibit some internal democratic credentials. Permitting corporate members a voice in decision-making can ensure that corporate purposes align with the individual purposes upon which associational freedom derives. (Laborde, 2017) Nevertheless, after consideration of the literature on group agency (e.g., List and Pettit 2011) and group rights, (e.g., Benhabib 2002; Levy 2014) I also conclude that autonomy rights founded on associationalism must be tempered to protect the equal rights and liberties of those that might be harmed by corporate action. Given labor markets characterized by monopsony, financial markets characterized by the “forced capitalism,” (Strine, Jr., 2017) and the ongoing control exercised by corporate leadership under the constraints of product market competition, I find that ascribing associational rights to corporations is a tall order indeed. It may require that corporations assume further democratic institutions designed to protect those whose rights are vulnerable to corporate autonomy: e.g., intra-corporate individual autonomy rights, accountability mechanisms, internal counter-powers, and systems of discursive justification. I then argue that this theory of corporate autonomy rights incorporates the best, and jettisons the worst, of alternative theories of workplace democracy. In particular, it integrates and tempers the associationalist instincts of syndicalist, participatory democratic theories while building on the protective instincts of republican theories. The dissertation concludes by addressing a common objection to workplace democracy: that it is so inefficient that it would destroy the very good its members mean to pursue as they exercise their associational freedoms. It finds that accountable representation, delegation of decision-making functions, and market exit can help a corporation maintain its democratic credentials while permitting it to respond to market constraint

3D virtual world as an enabler for a hybrid virtual-physical situated civic engagement platform

Abstract. User participatory design concept in the domain of urban computing has been playing a significant role around the industry and research area since it first came out. Many researchers and organisations involved in this strive to reach out a larger diversity of people so they could build urban environment better supportive and salubrious towards the community members. In this regard, we created a common ground platform for sharing opinions of people within the society by delivering a free speech from the public place. The installation is evaluated in our study dedicated in the context of human psychological sensation systems in the virtual environment, tries to find the relation between the performance of the task (giving a speech) carried out in a virtual space and the user’s degree of presence and immersion. The results of our series of field experiments show that there is a positive association between the system user interface and the quality of work, though, we could not extend it to the statement which saying the superior performance is the direct result of high immersion and presence

'Whatever Is, Is Right'?, Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe (Tawney Lecture 2006)

Institutions – the structures of rules and norms governing economic transactions – are widely assigned a central role in economic development. Yet economic history is still dominated by the belief that institutions arise and survive because they are economically efficient. This paper shows that alternative explanations of institutions – particularly those incorporating distributional effects – are consistent with economic theory and supported by empirical findings. Distributional conflicts provide a better explanation than efficiency for the core economic institutions of pre-industrial Europe – serfdom, the community, the craft guild, and the merchant guild. The paper concludes by proposing four desiderata for any future economic theory of institutions.

Local horizons of governance. Social conditions for good governance in rural development in Poland

The last thirty years have radically changed the nature of local resource management in rural communities throughout Poland (as well as in some other Central and Eastern European countries). New metamorphosis, policy, and funding mechanisms related to Poland’s political transformation and accession to the European Union have radically changed the character of institutions and tools available in rural development. Local communities have evolved along with improved education levels, decline in agricultural employment rates, and increased migrations to cities and Western Europe. This article presents the social conditions for the good governance processes in a selected region of Poland. Based on their extended quantitative and qualitative research, the authors discuss a number of phenomena such as the low effectiveness of collective actions, dense networks of informal relations, and the lack of trust in public service institutions despite the deregulation of certain powers. The ethnographic study reveals that while their overall picture may seem quite uniform, local rural communities in Poland tend to differ depending on the economic structure, history, and cultural identity of their inhabitants. Finally, the article analyses difficulties in the implementation of the good governance mechanisms within the country’s local rural communities