Belief and Counterfactuality: A teleological theory of belief attribution

The development and relation of counterfactual reasoning and false belief understanding were examined in 3- to 7-year-old children (N=75) and adult controls (N=14). The key question was whether false belief understanding engages counterfactual reasoning to infer what somebody else falsely believes. Findings revealed a strong correlation between false belief and counterfactual questions even in conditions in which children could commit errors other than the reality bias (rp=.51). The data suggest that mastery of belief attribution and counterfactual reasoning is not limited to one point in development but rather develops over a longer period. Moreover, the rare occurrence of reality errors calls into question whether young children's errors in the classic false belief task are indeed the result of a failure to inhibit what they know to be actually the case. The data speak in favour of a teleological theory of belief attribution and challenges established theories of belief attribution

Tödliche Pflege im Nationalsozialismus

Über die Beteiligung der Pflege an den Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit im Nationalsozialismus ist bis dato relativ wenig bekannt. Eine gründliche Aufarbeitung ihrer Vergangenheit kann der Pflege bei der Etablierung als eigenständige Disziplin hilfreich sein. Ziel der Arbeit: Eine umfassende Darstellung der Pflege im NS, von der Entstehung der ideologischen Grundlage der NS-„Euthanasie“-Aktionen über die Ausbildung der Pflegekräfte im Dritten Reich bis zu den Formen der Beteiligung von Pflegepersonen an den Krankenmorden. Außerdem die Klärung der Frage, aus welchen Gründen Pflegekräfte an den „Euthanasie“-Verbrechen mitgewirkt hatten. Methodik: Literaturrecherche zu den Themen „Pflege im NS“ und „Euthanasie im NS“. Ergebnisse: Pflegekräfte beteiligten sich an allen Phasen der „Euthanasie“-Aktionen beteiligt: Sie verrichteten Vor-, Zu- und Nacharbeiten, beschimpften, bzw. quälten die Pfleglinge, wendeten Gewalt an und mordeten durch die Gabe von überdosierten Medikamente sowie mittels Nahrungsentzug. Die Pflegekräfte waren autoritätshörig, kritikunfähig, ohne Zivilcourage und töteten entweder aus, Pflichtbewusstsein, Angst vor Konsequenzen bei Befehlsverweigerung, rassenhygienischen Überzeugungen, dem Glauben an eine gesetzliche Grundlage, oder Mitleid. Die „Euthanasie“-Täter waren „normale“ Menschen aus meistens kleinbürgerlichen Verhältnissen. Eine Dienstverweigerung wäre möglich gewesen, kam jedoch ebenso wie aktiver Widerstand kaum vor. Die vor Gericht gestellten Pflegekräfte zeigten bis auf einzelne Ausnahmen keine Reue. Resümee: Pflegekräfte, die sich an den Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit beteiligten, stellten keine Opfer des NS-Regimes sondern Täter dar. Implikationen für die Gegenwart: Selbstverantwortliches, eigenständiges und zivilcouragiertes Verhalten sollten in der heutigen Pflegepraxis gefördert, starre hierarchische Strukturen abgebaut werden. Der allgemeine Bildungsgrad der Pflegekräfte sollte auf eine universitäre Ebene angehoben und eine umfassende Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema NS-„Euthanasie“ in den Lehrplan von Krankenpflegeschulen integriert werden.The participation of nurses in crimes against humanity in the National Socialist Era is still a relatively unexplored issue. Coming to terms with its past could mean an important step towards becoming a self-contained scientific discipline for the nursing profession. Objective: Giving a comprehensive overview of nursing in the times of National Socialism, including the genesis of the ideological background of the “Euthanasia”, the schooling of nurses in the Third Reich and the varieties of nurses’ participation in the murder of patients. Settling the question what motives caregivers had to participate in the “Euthanasia”-Program. Method: Literature research. Findings: Caregivers participated in every phase of the „Euthanasia“-Program. They helped to organize the murders, tortured, and verbally harassed the patients. They resorted to violence and murdered with overdosed medicine and the deprivation of food. The nurses were slavishly following authority, unable to criticize their superiors, and they lacked moral courage. There were many different motivations: their sense of duty, the fear of consequences for refusing to obey orders, racial hygienic convictions, the belief in a legal basis, or out of mercy. Those who participated in the “Euthanasia”-Program were “ordinary” people coming from a lower middleclass background. The refusal to obey orders seemed to be possible, but, just as with active resistance, happened very rarely. The majority of caregivers who were put on trial didn’t show remorse. Discussion: Nurses, who participated in crimes against humanity, weren’t victims of the National Socialistic Regime, but perpetrators. Implications for the presence: Self-dependence, self-reliance and moral courage should be promoted in the nursing practice; rigid hierarchical structures should be reduced. The general education level of nurses should be raised to an academic standard and the subject of “Euthanasia” in the Third Reich should be integrated in the curriculums of every nursing school

Basic Conditional Reasoning: How Children Mimic Counterfactual Reasoning

Children approach counterfactual questions about stories with a reasoning strategy that falls short of adults’ Counterfactual Reasoning (CFR). It was dubbed “Basic Conditional Reasoning” (BCR) in Rafetseder et al. (Child Dev 81(1):376–389, 2010). In this paper we provide a characterisation of the differences between BCR and CFR using a distinction between permanent and nonpermanent features of stories and Lewis/Stalnaker counterfactual logic. The critical difference pertains to how consistency between a story and a conditional antecedent incompatible with a nonpermanent feature of the story is achieved. Basic conditional reasoners simply drop all nonpermanent features of the story. Counterfactual reasoners preserve as much of the story as possible while accommodating the antecedent

Helping as an early indicator of a theory of mind: Mentalism or Teleology?

This article challenges Buttelmann, Carpenter, and Tomasello’s (2009) claim that young children’s helping responses in their task are based on ascribing a false belief to a mistaken agent. In the first Study 18- to 32-month old children (N = 28) were more likely to help find a toy in the false belief than in the true belief condition. In Study 2, with 54 children of the same age, we assessed the authors’ mentalist interpretation of this result against an alternative teleological interpretation that does not make this assumption of belief ascription. The data speak in favor of our alternative. Children’s social competency is based more on inferences about what is likely to happen in a particular situation and on objective reasons for action than on inferences about agents’ mental states. We also discuss the need for testing serious alternative interpretations of claims about early belief understanding

HASH(0x563d4404ac80)

HASH(0x563d43fb6ef8

Young children’s protest: what it can (not) tell us about early normative understanding

In this paper we address the question how children come to understand normativity through simple forms of social interaction. A recent line of research suggests that even very young children can understand social norms quite independently of any moral context. We focus on a methodological procedure developed by Rakoczy et al., Developmental Psychology, 44, 875-881, that measures children's protest behaviour when a pre-established constitutive rule has been violated. Children seem to protest when they realize that rule violations are not allowed or should not have happened. We point out that there is more than one possible explanation for children's reactions in these studies. They could be due to disobeying an authority, an inability to follow a rule, or the violation of an empirical expectation due to the mismatch between statement and action. We thus question whether it would still count as an indicator for normative understanding if children responded to aspects of the game other than the violation of a constitutive rule and conclude that the protesting behavior, when taken in isolation, does not suffice as evidence for normative understanding

Counterfactual Reasoning: Sharpening Conceptual Distinctions in Developmental Studies

ABSTRACT-Counterfactual reasoning (CFR)-mentally representing what the world would be like now if things had been different in the past-is an important aspect of human cognition and the focus of research in areas such as philosophy, social psychology, and clinical psychology. More recently, it has also gained broad interest in cognitive developmental psychology, mainly focusing on the question of how this kind of reasoning can be characterized. Studies have been inconsistent in identifying when children can use CFR. In this article, we present theoretical positions that may account for this inconsistency and evaluate them in the light of research on counterfactual emotions

Laying foundations for a “Right to Improve”

In this work, we introduce the vision of a “Right to Improve”: a hypothetical future law which should entitle consumers to modify and extend Internet of Things devices during the productive lifetime. Current European Union legislation as well as voluntary manufacturer interoperability initiatives fail to address user desires for adaptability, augmentability, and open-ended repurpoposing of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. We therefore argue in this paper for a Right to Improve that aims to fill the gaps left by today’s laws, conforms to consumer demands, and is powerful enough (by its statutory nature) to cause actual change. Our contribution is twofold. First, we summarize the relevant legislation (Ecodesign Directive, Sale of Goods Directive, and Right to Repair). We review the academic literature, and highlight technical and motivational factors that support a Right to Improve. Second, we suggest and discuss a number of open problems in need of consideration by academics, practitioners, companies, governing bodies, and the general public. A future formulation of the Right to Improve should take into account and balance the various contrasting views for efficacy on different levels, e.g., environmental benefit vs. economic risk. Change enabled by a Right to Improve may greatly enhance the usefulness of devices during their use phase, empowers consumers to create and compose devices and services to their own taste and requirements, makes devices more economically and ecologically sustainable by extending their useful lifetime, and creates new business opportunities