Psychology Commons^™

Heuristics, Biases, And Philosophy, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Commenting on Professor Cass Sunstein's work is a daunting task. There is simply so much of it. Professor Sunstein produces scholarship at a rate that is faster than I can consume it. Scarcely an area of law has failed to feel his impact. One cannot today write an article on administrative law, free speech, punitive damages, Internet law, law and economics, separation of powers, or animal rights law without addressing one or more of Sunstein's papers. And his work is typically not a mere footnote. Sunstein has changed how scholars think about each of these areas of law. More broadly, …

Hsisp Annotated Bibliography: Moral & Character Education (1998-2013), Erich Yahner

Erich Yahner

No abstract provided.

Animal Pleasure And Its Moral Significance, Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

This paper presents arguments for, and evidence in support of, the important role of pleasure in animals’ lives, and outlines its considerable significance to humankind’s relationship to other animals. In the realms of animal sentience, almost all scholarly discussion revolves around its negative aspects: pain, stress, distress, and suffering. By contrast, the positive aspects of sentience – rewards and pleasures – have been rarely broached by scientists. Yet, evolutionary principles predict that animals, like humans, are motivated to seek rewards, and not merely to avoid pain and suffering. Natural selection favours behaviours that enhance survival and procreation. In the conscious, …

The Applicability Of The Self-Fulfillment Account Of Welfare To Nonhuman Animals, Babies, And Mentally Disabled Humans, Tatjana Visak, Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

In this paper we will argue that generality is a virtue of Haybron’s account of welfare. Indeed, reflecting on the applicability of his theory to nonhuman animals will give us a better understanding of its applicability to humans. We will first focus on self-fulfillment and suggest an interpretation of Haybron’s account according to which the self-fulfillment of an individual consists in the fulfillment of the aspects of the self that are applicable to that particular individual. This makes Haybron’s account of welfare applicable to all sentient beings. Then we will focus on sub-personal nature-fulfillment and argue that the same interpretation …

Using Systematic Review Methods For Topics In Philosophical And Theoretical Psychology., Paul Fehrmann, Edith Siken

Paul Fehrmann

In all academic disciplines it is common to see authors refer to what is found in 'the literature'; and in many areas the traditional literature review (TLR) is used to provide a summary look at what has been 'done before'. TLR methods are widely used to summarize or synthesize literature on a topic, etc. Projects that benefit from TLR include university student papers, theses, and dissertations, as well as professional articles and grant proposals. However, among other concerns, critics have pointed to the potential for biased representation of topics when TLR are used. Some have pointed to concerns with potential …

Seeing Confucian ‘Active Moral Perception’ In Light Of Contemporary Psychology, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

How To Gauge Moral Intuitions? Prospects For A New Methodology, Attila Tanyi, Martin Bruder

Attila Tanyi

Examining folk intuitions about philosophical questions lies at the core of experimental philosophy. This requires both a good account of what intuitions are and methods allowing to assess them. We propose to combine philosophical and psychological conceptualisations of intuitions by focusing on three of their features: immediacy, lack of inferential relations, and stability. Once this account of intuition is at hand, we move on to propose a methodology that can test all three characteristics without eliminating any of them. In the final part of the paper, we propose implementations of the new methodology as applied to the experimental investigation of …

Overdemanding Consequentialism? An Experimental Approach, Attila Tanyi, Martin Bruder

Attila Tanyi

According to act-consequentialism the right action is the one that produces the best results as judged from an impersonal perspective. Some claim that this requirement is unreasonably demanding and therefore consequentialism is unacceptable as a moral theory. The article breaks with dominant trends in discussing this so-called Overdemandingness Objection. Instead of focusing on theoretical responses, it empirically investigates whether there exists a widely shared intuition that consequentialist demands are unreasonable. This discussion takes the form of examining what people think about the normative significance of consequentialist requirements. In two experiments, the article finds that although people are sensitive to consequentialist …

Consequentialism And Its Demands: A Representative Study, Attila Tanyi, Martin Bruder

Attila Tanyi

An influential objection to act-consequentialism holds that the theory is unduly demanding. This paper is an attempt to approach this critique of act-consequentialism – the Overdemandingness Objection – from a different, so far undiscussed, angle. First, the paper argues that the most convincing form of the Objection claims that consequentialism is overdemanding because it requires us, with decisive force, to do things that, intuitively, we do not have decisive reason to perform. Second, in order to investigate the existence of the intuition, the paper reports empirical evidence of how people see the normative significance of consequentialist requirements.. In a scenario …