What Can Philosophers Learn from Psychopathy?

Many spectacular claims about psychopaths are circulated. This contribution aims at providing the reader with the more complex reality of the phenomenon (or phenomena), and to point to issues of particular interest to philosophers working in moral psychology and moral theory. I first discuss the current evidence regarding psychopaths’ deficient empathy and decision-making skills. I then explore what difference it makes to our thinking whether we regard their deficit dimensionally (as involving abilities that are on or off) and whether we focus on primary or secondary psychopathy. My conclusion is that most grand claims about psychopathy settling long-standing debates in moral philosophy and psychology are overblown, but there is much to be learnt from this disorder when it comes to formulating modern theories of moral psychology

The Self-Other Distinction in Empathy

An empathic emotion is supposed to be an emotion of the same type as the one the target experiences, but also be one in which there is a sharp self-other distinction. I show that these two desiderata are difficult to satisfy at the same time. Instead, what makes an emotion empathic is nothing intrinsic to that emotion. Instead, it is the person’s attitude towards what they are feeling that matters, I suggest. A person’s attitude towards other people – namely whether they care about their welfare – determines not only how likely they are to catch the emotions the other person is experiencing, but also how likely they are to empathize with them. Keywords: Empathy, Empathic Person, Distress, Self-Other Distinction, SympathyAn empathic emotion is supposed to be an emotion of the same type as the one the target experiences, but also be one in which there is a sharp self-other distinction. I show that these two desiderata are difficult to satisfy at the same time. Instead, what makes an emotion empathic is nothing intrinsic to that emotion. Instead, it is the person’s attitude towards what they are feeling that matters, I suggest. A person’s attitude towards other people – namely whether they care about their welfare – determines not only how likely they are to catch the emotions the other person is experiencing, but also how likely they are to empathize with them. Keywords: Empathy, Empathic Person, Distress, Self-Other Distinction, Sympath

Philosophical foundations of the theory theory of folk psychology

The Theory Theory is one account of our practice of attributing psychological states to ourselves and others. In the late 1980s, the advent of an alternative account, the Simulation Theory, provoked a new debate about the correctness of Theory Theory. In this debate, much confusion has arisen about the nature of Theory Theory. In this thesis, I try to dispel some of this confusion by outlining what must be the philosophical foundations of the Theory Theory. The thesis makes five main claims. First, I argue that it is unhelpful to regard any body of knowledge whatsoever as a theory. To do so does not illuminate the idea of a theory, and it makes the distinction between Theory Theory and Simulation Theory quite obscure. Second, I argue that we should understand the relevant sense of 'theory' in terms of the idea of a scientific theory. A scientific theory is composed of lawlike generalisations that contain interrelated terms that refer to entities and properties that are explanatory of the data, for example by being causally efficacious in the production of them, or by being related to them in some lawlike fashion. Third, I argue that Theory Theory is not committed to common sense functionalism, in either its semantic or metaphysical versions. Fourth, Theory Theory is not committed to us attributing psychological states to others and to ourselves on the same basis. Hence, it can allow that we can have distinctive knowledge of our own minds. Finally, I argue that Theory Theory should not maintain that we have tacit knowledge of folk psychological theory. From what we know of looks like, and from what current theories of tacit knowledge hold to be defining features of tacit knowledge, we must conclude that this knowledge is not tacit. The above conclusions form a basis of the Theory Theory which will make possible more specific formulations of it, and will facilitate and clarify further debate

Experimental evidence on the effects of early meetings and activation

We analyze the effects of four randomized social experiments, involving early and intensive active labour market policy, conducted in Denmark in 2008. The experiments entailed different combinations of early and intensive treatment in terms of meetings and active labour market programmes. The effects are remarkable; frequent meetings between newly unemployed workers and case workers can increase employment rates over the next two years by up to 5 weeks, corresponding to 10%. For men, we find evidence of a threat effect of having to participate in early active labour market programmes, while no such effect is found for women. In general, we find large differences between men and women, especially in the exact timing of the effects. We conduct a cost-benefit analysis of each of the four experiments and find that meetings yield the largest net benefits

Can Active Labour Market Policies Combat Youth Unemployment?

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) may play an important role in preventing an increase in long-term unemployment following the Great Recession. We consider this issue for Denmark, a country relying extensively on this instrument. We present evidence on the effectiveness of ALMPs as a way of fighting youth unemployment using results from a randomised controlled trial (RCT) that intensified the use of ALMPs. The intervention was conducted after the onset of the financial crisis, and the findings are relatively unfavourable in the sense that further intensification of an already quite intensive effort for youth did not increase employment. In addition, the intensification of ALMPs seems to have in-creased transitions into sickness benefits

Do Business Cycles Have Long-Term Impact for Particular Cohorts?

Will the current employment crisis produce lost generations with permanently lower labour market attachment? Taking an explicit cohort perspective and based on Danish data we do not find strong persistence in employment rates at the cohort level. Younger workers tend to be more exposed to business cycle fluctuations than older workers, but importantly they recover more quickly from such set-backs than older workers for whom persistence is stronger. Moreover, no cohorts have been disproportionately affected by exposure to a sequence of adverse shocks. An explicit account of overlapping cohorts is shown to affect assessments of persistence in aggregate employment rates

The project “understAID”, a platform that helps informal caregivers to understand and aid their demented relatives

[Abstract] “UnderstAID” is a platform that helps informal caregivers to understand and aid their demented relatives. It is an international project initiated by Denmark, Poland and Spain. The aim of the project is to design, and implement the multimedia platform “understAID” to support informal caregivers of dementia patients. The project was launched in April 2013 and is expected to end 36 months later. The project is divided into five tasks concerning the final aim. The aim of task 1 is the management of the project, as well as the exploitation and dissemination of gathered information. Task 2 is meant to define the contents and solutions of the CarePlatform based on the knowledge gained from real-case studies. Demented elderlies from each country (n = 40) suffering from different degrees of dementia were evaluated by formal caregivers and dementia professionals. The aim of task 3 is the development of the social learning interface. Task 4 focuses on the CarePlatform development and system integration. Finally, task 5 assumes testing and validation of the platform. The platform is devised to be available in two versions, namely the light one for mobile appliance and the premium version. Also different activities leading to the popularization of the platform are planned