From punishment to universalism

Many philosophers have claimed that the folk endorse moral universalism. Some have taken the folk view to support moral universalism; others have taken the folk view to reflect a deep confusion. And while some empirical evidence supports the claim that the folk endorse moral universalism, this work has uncovered intra-domain differences in folk judgments of moral universalism. In light of all this, our question is: why do the folk endorse moral universalism? Our hypothesis is that folk judgments of moral universalism are generated in part by a desire to punish. We present evidence supporting this across three studies. On the basis of this, we argue for a debunking explanation of folk judgments of moral universalism. Our results not only further our understanding of the psychological processes underpinning folk judgments of moral universalism. They also bear on philosophical discussions of folk meta-ethics

On the genealogy of norms: a case for the role of emotion in cultural evolution

Journal ArticleArgues that emotional responses constitute one important set of mechanisms that affects the cultural viability of norms. Historical evidence indicating that 16th century etiquette norms prohibiting disgusting actions were much more likely to survive than other 16th century etiquette norms; Need for research focus on the role of emotional systems in cultural transmission

Mind's "I" and the theory of mind's "I": introspection and two concepts of self

Journal ArticleIntrospection plays a crucial role in modern Philosophy; in two different ways. From the beginnings of modern Philosophy;, introspection has been used as a tool for philosophical exploration in a variety of thought experiments. But modern philosophers (e.g., Locke and Hume) also tried to characterize the nature of introspection as a psychological phenomenon. In contemporary Philosophy;, introspection is still frequently used in thought experiments. And in the analytic tradition, philosophers have tried to characterize conceptually necessary features of introspection. But over the last several decades, philosophers have devoted relatively little attention to the cognitive characteristics of introspection. This has begun to change, impelled largely by a fascinating body of work on how children and autistic individuals understand the mind. In a pair of recent papers, Stephen Stich and I have drawn on this empirical work to develop an account of introspection or self-awareness. Here, I will elaborate and defend this cognitive theory of introspection further and argue that if the account is right, it may have important ramifications for psychological and philosophical debates over the self

Do children think of the self as the soul?

Journal ArticleBering's work provides new insight into the child's concept of the self. For his results indicate that children don't regard bodily identity as required for identity of self across time. Bering's methodology for investigating afterlife beliefs might also be exploited to explore the extent to which children think that psychological similarity is required for sameness of self

Leadership Behaviors and Their Impact on Employee Retention

This study analyzed the impact leadership behaviors had on employee retention in the Houston, Texas manufacturing sector. Many authors’ work was reviewed with literature pertaining to leadership behaviors and employee retention. Multiple interviews were conducted with current leadership at Houston, Texas manufacturing organizations to gain a better understanding of the experience of these employees. The results of the leadership study have a profoundly positive impact on employee retention. Three emergent themes were developed based on data analysis, which included empathy, listening, and employee development

Adaptive complexity and phenomenal consciousness

Journal ArticleFocuses on epiphenomenalism problems in arguments about evolutionary function of phenomenal consciousness. Implications of cognitive neuropsychology evidence for the structure of phenomenal consciousness; Distinction of different kinds of epiphenominalist arguments; Provision of a developmental basis by complexity argument

Confabulation, confidence, and introspection

Journal ArticleCarruthers' arguments depend on a tenuous interpretation of cases from the confabulation literature. Specifically, Carruthers maintains that cases of confabulation are "subjectively indistinguishable" from cases of alleged introspection. However, in typical cases of confabulation, the self-attributions are characterized by low confidence, in contrast to cases of alleged introspection. What is confabulation? Carruthers' central argument hinges on this notion, so we need to get clear on what he has in mind. Carruthers doesn't present an explicit characterization, but the overall discussion suggests that the relevant confabulations are a class of first-person mental state attributions that are generated by an "interpretative" process, as opposed to an "introspective" process. By "interpretative," Carruthers means any process " that accesses information about the subject's current circumstances, or the subject's current or recent behavior, as well as any other information about the subject's current or recent mental life" (sect. 1.4, para. 3). This characterization seems too broad because introspection itself is supposed to be a process that accesses information about the subject's current mental life. But Carruthers means to count as interpretative only those processes that do not employ any "direct" access or any mechanism specifically dedicated to detecting one's current mental states. On Carruthers' view, all attributions of propositional attitude events are, in fact, interpretative. So what is the relation between "confabulation" and "interpretation"? Here are several different possibilities: 1. Confabulations include all self-attributions that result from interpretation. 2. Confabulations include all false self-attributions that result from interpretation, and accurate interpretative self-ascriptions do not count as confabulatory. 3. Confabulations include only a proper subset of false self-attributions resulting from interpretation

Normativity and epistemic intuitions

Journal ArticleIn this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizable group of epistemological projects -- a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition -- would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in section 2. The second claim is that while the jury is still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence suggesting that some of those empirical hypotheses are true. Much of this evidence derives from an ongoing series of experimental studies of epistemic intuitions that we have been conducting. A preliminary report on these studies will be presented in section 3. In light of these studies, we think it is incumbent on those who pursue the epistemological projects in question to either explain why the truth of the hypotheses does not undermine their projects, or to say why, in light of the evidence we will present, they nonetheless assume that the hypotheses are false. In section 4, which is devoted to Objections and Replies, we'll consider some of the ways in which defenders of the projects we are criticizing might reply to our challenge. Our goal is not to offer a conclusive argument demonstrating that the epistemological projects we will be criticizing are untenable. Rather, our aim is to shift the burden of argument. For far too long, epistemologists who rely heavily on epistemic intuitions have proceeded as though they could simply ignore the empirical hypotheses we will set out. We will be well satisfied if we succeed in making a plausible case for the claim that this approach is no longer acceptable

Are They Not All the Same? Racial Heterogeneity Among Black Male Undergraduates

An erroneous assumption is often made that Black men, one of the most stereotyped groups on college and university campuses, all share common experiences and backgrounds. Using Celious and Oyserman\u27s (2001) Heterogeneous Race Model as a conceptual framework, we explored within-group differences among Black male undergraduates at three private institutions. Data collected from 39 participants reveal insights into the origins and characterizations of diversity among Black men, as well as the stereotypes, competition, and social distance associated with racial heterogeneity. Implications for Black male solidarity on campuses where few are enrolled and expanding conceptualizations of interacting across difference are offered at the end of this article

Cause and burn

Many philosophers maintain that causation is to be explicated in terms of a kind of dependence between cause and effect. These “dependence” theories are opposed by “production” accounts which hold that there is some more fundamental causal “oomph”. A wide range of experimental research on everyday causal judgments seems to indicate that ordinary people operate primarily with a dependence-based notion of causation. For example, people tend to say that absences and double preventers are causes. We argue that the impression that commonsense causal discourse is largely dependence-based is the result of focusing on a very narrow class of causal verbs. Almost all of the vignette-based experimental work on causal judgment has been prosecuted using the word “cause”. But much ordinary causal discourse involves special causal verbs, such as “burn” and “crack”. We find that these verbs display a quite different pattern from the verb “cause”. For instance, for absences and double preventers (Studies 1-3), we find that while people are inclined to say that X caused Y to burn, turn, crack or start, they are less inclined to think that X burned, turned, cracked or started Y. In Study 4, we find that for chains involving a distal and proximal event, people are inclined to say that the distal event is not a special cause of the outcome, though it is a “cause” of the outcome. Together, we find a surprising double dissociation between “cause” and a stock of special causal verbs. We conclude by suggesting that much commonsense causal judgment, which heavily trades in special causal verbs, might be better captured by production-based accounts of causation