By Robert Kurzban
Center for Humans and Nature
Originally published in August 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Moral principles are unlike physical principles. Moral principles are more like songs. Songs don’t exist for people to find. No one could conduct a research project and discover “Let it Be.” Songs are produced by human minds. The relationship between human minds and morality is one of creation: human minds create morality.
This position is not uncontroversial, and some people think that moral rules are more like the laws of motion than they are like songs. There are a number of reasons to take the morality-as-songs view, but I’ll just mention two. First, moral rules are very, very diverse. There is very little debate about whether or not force equal mass times acceleration. In contrast, debates rage about what’s right and what’s wrong. In some places, for instance, homosexuality is still considered to be wrong. In other places, the moral condemnation of homosexuality is itself considered a moral failing.
The entire article is here.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
“Philosophical Superficiality” Has Harmed Physics
By John Horgan
Scientific American
Originally posted August 21, 2014
Here is an excerpted quote from Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist, in the article:
"Look: Einstein, Heisenberg, Newton, Bohr…. and many many others of the greatest scientists of all times, much greater than the names you mention, of course, read philosophy, learned from philosophy, and could have never done the great science they did without the input they got from philosophy, as they claimed repeatedly. You see: the scientists that talk philosophy down are simply superficial: they have a philosophy (usually some ill-digested mixture of Popper and Kuhn) and think that this is the “true” philosophy, and do not realize that this has limitations.
Here is an example: theoretical physics has not done great in the last decades. Why? Well, one of the reasons, I think, is that it got trapped in a wrong philosophy: the idea that you can make progress by guessing new theory and disregarding the qualitative content of previous theories. This is the physics of the “why not?” Why not studying this theory, or the other? Why not another dimension, another field, another universe? Science has never advanced in this manner in the past. Science does not advance by guessing. It advances by new data or by a deep investigation of the content and the apparent contradictions of previous empirically successful theories. Quite remarkably, the best piece of physics done by the three people you mention is Hawking’s black-hole radiation, which is exactly this. But most of current theoretical physics is not of this sort. Why? Largely because of the philosophical superficiality of the current bunch of scientists."
The entire article is here.
Scientific American
Originally posted August 21, 2014
Here is an excerpted quote from Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist, in the article:
"Look: Einstein, Heisenberg, Newton, Bohr…. and many many others of the greatest scientists of all times, much greater than the names you mention, of course, read philosophy, learned from philosophy, and could have never done the great science they did without the input they got from philosophy, as they claimed repeatedly. You see: the scientists that talk philosophy down are simply superficial: they have a philosophy (usually some ill-digested mixture of Popper and Kuhn) and think that this is the “true” philosophy, and do not realize that this has limitations.
Here is an example: theoretical physics has not done great in the last decades. Why? Well, one of the reasons, I think, is that it got trapped in a wrong philosophy: the idea that you can make progress by guessing new theory and disregarding the qualitative content of previous theories. This is the physics of the “why not?” Why not studying this theory, or the other? Why not another dimension, another field, another universe? Science has never advanced in this manner in the past. Science does not advance by guessing. It advances by new data or by a deep investigation of the content and the apparent contradictions of previous empirically successful theories. Quite remarkably, the best piece of physics done by the three people you mention is Hawking’s black-hole radiation, which is exactly this. But most of current theoretical physics is not of this sort. Why? Largely because of the philosophical superficiality of the current bunch of scientists."
The entire article is here.
Morality and the Religious Mind: Why Theists and Nontheists Differ
By Azim Shariff, Jared Piazza, and Stephanie R. Kramer
Science and Society
Religions have come to be intimately tied to morality and much recent research has shown that theists and nontheists differ in their moral behavior and decision making along several dimensions. Here we discuss how these empirical trends can be explained by fundamental differences in group commitment, motivations for pro-sociality, cognitive styles, and meta-ethics. We conclude that by elucidating key areas of moral congruence.
The entire article is here.
Science and Society
Religions have come to be intimately tied to morality and much recent research has shown that theists and nontheists differ in their moral behavior and decision making along several dimensions. Here we discuss how these empirical trends can be explained by fundamental differences in group commitment, motivations for pro-sociality, cognitive styles, and meta-ethics. We conclude that by elucidating key areas of moral congruence.
The entire article is here.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
When Do Doctors Have the Right to Speak?
Room for Debate
The New York Times
Updated August 22, 2014
Here are two great questions to debate in any ethics class, from the New York Times.
Two federal appellate court decisions, one allowing Florida to prevent doctors from discussing gun safety with patients, the other letting California ban “gay-conversion” therapy, raise questions about health professionals’ First Amendment rights.
Do occupational-licensing laws trump the First Amendment? What limits, if any, does the First Amendment impose on government’s ability to restrict advice?
Here is one response:
As a physician, it is important to remember the guiding principle of medicine: "first, do no harm." Barring physicians from discussing whether or not lethal weapons exist in the home is wrong. It is well understood that the simple presence of a firearm in the home is associated with a greater risk of bodily harm - either to oneself or any children in the home. Asking about weapons is a usual (standard and accepted) practice as part of the screening assessment for depression; since those with easy access to a firearm and who have suicidal thoughts are significantly more likely to harm themselves. Here, the physician's role is simple: protect human life. Contrast this to the ban on "gay-conversion," therapy, which has been scientifically proven to have more harm than benefit to the individual. In both cases, the tenet being upheld here is to "first, do no harm." It is tragically ironic that those who are often supporting both of these causes are one usually crying to "get the government out of my healthcare," yet they seem perfectly willing to impede the practice of good medicine when it is politically expedient. I can only hope that those supporting the "opposite" views from those expressed here will have a caring physician him/herself that will ignore these political debates in order to provide care that is in the best interest of the patient.
Suicide tourism: a pilot study on the Swiss phenomenon
By S. Gauthier, J. Mausbach, T. Reisch, and C. Bartsch
J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102091
Abstract
While assisted suicide (AS) is strictly restricted in many countries, it is not clearly regulated by law in Switzerland. This imbalance leads to an influx of people—‘suicide tourists’—coming to Switzerland, mainly to the Canton of Zurich, for the sole purpose of committing suicide. Political debate regarding ‘suicide tourism’ is taking place in many countries. Swiss medicolegal experts are confronted with these cases almost daily, which prompted our scientific investigation of the phenomenon. The present study has three aims: (1) to determine selected details about AS in the study group (age, gender and country of residence of the suicide tourists, the organisation involved, the ingested substance leading to death and any diseases that were the main reason for AS); (2) to find out the countries from which suicide tourists come and to review existing laws in the top three in order to test the hypothesis that suicide tourism leads to the amendment of existing regulations in foreign countries; and (3) to compare our results with those of earlier studies in Zurich. We did a retrospective data analysis of the Zurich Institute of Legal Medicine database on AS of non-Swiss residents in the last 5 years (2008–2012), and internet research for current legislation and political debate in the three foreign countries most concerned. We analysed 611 cases from 31 countries all over the world. Non-terminal conditions such as neurological and rheumatic diseases are increasing among suicide tourists. The unique phenomenon of suicide tourism in Switzerland may indeed result in the amendment or supplementary guidelines to existing regulations in foreign countries.
The entire story is here.
J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102091
Abstract
While assisted suicide (AS) is strictly restricted in many countries, it is not clearly regulated by law in Switzerland. This imbalance leads to an influx of people—‘suicide tourists’—coming to Switzerland, mainly to the Canton of Zurich, for the sole purpose of committing suicide. Political debate regarding ‘suicide tourism’ is taking place in many countries. Swiss medicolegal experts are confronted with these cases almost daily, which prompted our scientific investigation of the phenomenon. The present study has three aims: (1) to determine selected details about AS in the study group (age, gender and country of residence of the suicide tourists, the organisation involved, the ingested substance leading to death and any diseases that were the main reason for AS); (2) to find out the countries from which suicide tourists come and to review existing laws in the top three in order to test the hypothesis that suicide tourism leads to the amendment of existing regulations in foreign countries; and (3) to compare our results with those of earlier studies in Zurich. We did a retrospective data analysis of the Zurich Institute of Legal Medicine database on AS of non-Swiss residents in the last 5 years (2008–2012), and internet research for current legislation and political debate in the three foreign countries most concerned. We analysed 611 cases from 31 countries all over the world. Non-terminal conditions such as neurological and rheumatic diseases are increasing among suicide tourists. The unique phenomenon of suicide tourism in Switzerland may indeed result in the amendment or supplementary guidelines to existing regulations in foreign countries.
The entire story is here.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy
Brink, David, "Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition)
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming
Here is an excerpt:
2.6 Utilitarianism as a Standard of Conduct
We might expect a utilitarian to apply the utilitarian principle in her deliberations. Consider act utilitarianism. We might expect such a utilitarian to be motivated by pure disinterested benevolence and to deliberate by calculating expected utility. But it is a practical question how to reason or be motivated, and act utilitarianism implies that this practical question, like all practical questions, is correctly answered by what would maximize utility. Utilitarian calculation is time-consuming and often unreliable or subject to bias and distortion. For such reasons, we may better approximate the utilitarian standard if we don't always try to approximate it. Mill says that to suppose that one must always consciously employ the utilitarian principle in making decisions
… is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals and confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done if the rule of duty does not condemn them. (U II 18)
Later utilitarians, such as Sidgwick, have made essentially the same point, insisting that utilitarianism provides a standard of right action, not necessarily a decision procedure (Methods 413).
If utilitarianism is itself the standard of right conduct, not a decision procedure, then what sort of decision procedure should the utilitarian endorse, and what role should the principle of utility play in moral reasoning? As we will see, Mill thinks that much moral reasoning should be governed by secondary precepts or principles about such things as fidelity, fair play, and honesty that make no direct reference to utility but whose general observance does promote utility. These secondary principles should be set aside in favor of direct appeals to the utilitarian first principle in cases in which adherence to the secondary precept would have obviously inferior consequences or in which such secondary principles conflict (U II 19, 24–25).
The entire entry is here.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition)
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming
Here is an excerpt:
2.6 Utilitarianism as a Standard of Conduct
We might expect a utilitarian to apply the utilitarian principle in her deliberations. Consider act utilitarianism. We might expect such a utilitarian to be motivated by pure disinterested benevolence and to deliberate by calculating expected utility. But it is a practical question how to reason or be motivated, and act utilitarianism implies that this practical question, like all practical questions, is correctly answered by what would maximize utility. Utilitarian calculation is time-consuming and often unreliable or subject to bias and distortion. For such reasons, we may better approximate the utilitarian standard if we don't always try to approximate it. Mill says that to suppose that one must always consciously employ the utilitarian principle in making decisions
… is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals and confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done if the rule of duty does not condemn them. (U II 18)
Later utilitarians, such as Sidgwick, have made essentially the same point, insisting that utilitarianism provides a standard of right action, not necessarily a decision procedure (Methods 413).
If utilitarianism is itself the standard of right conduct, not a decision procedure, then what sort of decision procedure should the utilitarian endorse, and what role should the principle of utility play in moral reasoning? As we will see, Mill thinks that much moral reasoning should be governed by secondary precepts or principles about such things as fidelity, fair play, and honesty that make no direct reference to utility but whose general observance does promote utility. These secondary principles should be set aside in favor of direct appeals to the utilitarian first principle in cases in which adherence to the secondary precept would have obviously inferior consequences or in which such secondary principles conflict (U II 19, 24–25).
The entire entry is here.
Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?
By Jennifer Kahn
The New York Times
Originally published May 11, 2012
Here is an excerpt:
For the past 10 years, Waschbusch has been studying “callous-unemotional” children — those who exhibit a distinctive lack of affect, remorse or empathy — and who are considered at risk of becoming psychopaths as adults. To evaluate Michael, Waschbusch used a combination of psychological exams and teacher- and family-rating scales, including the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits, the Child Psychopathy Scale and a modified version of the Antisocial Process Screening Device — all tools designed to measure the cold, predatory conduct most closely associated with adult psychopathy. (The terms “sociopath” and “psychopath” are essentially identical.) A research assistant interviewed Michael’s parents and teachers about his behavior at home and in school. When all the exams and reports were tabulated, Michael was almost two standard deviations outside the normal range for callous-unemotional behavior, which placed him on the severe end of the spectrum.
Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5. Crucial to this diagnosis are callous-unemotional traits, which most researchers now believe distinguish “fledgling psychopaths” from children with ordinary conduct disorder, who are also impulsive and hard to control and exhibit hostile or violent behavior.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times
Originally published May 11, 2012
Here is an excerpt:
For the past 10 years, Waschbusch has been studying “callous-unemotional” children — those who exhibit a distinctive lack of affect, remorse or empathy — and who are considered at risk of becoming psychopaths as adults. To evaluate Michael, Waschbusch used a combination of psychological exams and teacher- and family-rating scales, including the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits, the Child Psychopathy Scale and a modified version of the Antisocial Process Screening Device — all tools designed to measure the cold, predatory conduct most closely associated with adult psychopathy. (The terms “sociopath” and “psychopath” are essentially identical.) A research assistant interviewed Michael’s parents and teachers about his behavior at home and in school. When all the exams and reports were tabulated, Michael was almost two standard deviations outside the normal range for callous-unemotional behavior, which placed him on the severe end of the spectrum.
Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5. Crucial to this diagnosis are callous-unemotional traits, which most researchers now believe distinguish “fledgling psychopaths” from children with ordinary conduct disorder, who are also impulsive and hard to control and exhibit hostile or violent behavior.
The entire article is here.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
responsibility and punishment
Katrina Sifferd interviewed by Richard Marshall
3:AM Magazine
Originally posted
Here is an excerpt:
KS: Well, for one, we won’t be able to make responsibility assessments. When you show a jury a picture of a brain lighting up in such-and-such a way it means absolutely nothing to them until somebody translates the scientific data into folk psychological terms. Expert witnesses in a trial cannot just point to a dark spot on a PET scan and sit down: the scientific data is irrelevant to the defendant’s culpability until is it translated into folk concepts that push and pull responsibility assessments in different directions. For example, an expert might note that the dark spot is a brain tumor likely to result in a severe lack of impulse control, which the jury might feel undermines attribution of the highest levels of criminal intent.
I think it is interesting that some scientific data actually seems to push responsibility assessments in both directions, or in ways unanticipated by the side offering the evidence in a criminal trial. In one high profile capital sentencing hearing, the defense offered neuroscientific evidence of psychopathy in an attempt to prove diminished capacity (and thus a mitigating factor); but instead, the jury seemed to think the data made the defendant more culpable for his actions, and sentenced him to death. Is a person whose brain shows clear signs of psychopathy less responsible because of their abnormal brain function or more responsible because their brain is abnormal (and thus they are likely to be dangerous in the future)? I think it depends on the way in which the brain is dysfunctional, and maybe the reasons why it is dysfunctional. There is a lot of important work to be done making reliable translations of neuroscientific data into folk descriptions relevant to responsibility.
(cut)
KS: Different theories of punishment seem to emphasize different aspects of our cognitive capacities as most important to culpability. Bill and I have argued that deontological accounts which postulate emotional response or empathy as crucial to moral knowledge and decision-making might be more likely to excuse all psychopaths because of their apparent lack of relevant affective data. Some deontological theorists believe that a lack of appropriate emotional response translates into a wholesale lack of legal rationality. A consequentialist theory of punishment, however, may be more likely to hold some psychopaths responsible, because it emphasizes the need for rational capacities as a means to grasp and reflect upon the consequences of action given ones goals and relevant social norms (a skill successful psychopaths may possess), and not the way one feels about these consequences.
The entire interview is here.
3:AM Magazine
Originally posted
Here is an excerpt:
KS: Well, for one, we won’t be able to make responsibility assessments. When you show a jury a picture of a brain lighting up in such-and-such a way it means absolutely nothing to them until somebody translates the scientific data into folk psychological terms. Expert witnesses in a trial cannot just point to a dark spot on a PET scan and sit down: the scientific data is irrelevant to the defendant’s culpability until is it translated into folk concepts that push and pull responsibility assessments in different directions. For example, an expert might note that the dark spot is a brain tumor likely to result in a severe lack of impulse control, which the jury might feel undermines attribution of the highest levels of criminal intent.
I think it is interesting that some scientific data actually seems to push responsibility assessments in both directions, or in ways unanticipated by the side offering the evidence in a criminal trial. In one high profile capital sentencing hearing, the defense offered neuroscientific evidence of psychopathy in an attempt to prove diminished capacity (and thus a mitigating factor); but instead, the jury seemed to think the data made the defendant more culpable for his actions, and sentenced him to death. Is a person whose brain shows clear signs of psychopathy less responsible because of their abnormal brain function or more responsible because their brain is abnormal (and thus they are likely to be dangerous in the future)? I think it depends on the way in which the brain is dysfunctional, and maybe the reasons why it is dysfunctional. There is a lot of important work to be done making reliable translations of neuroscientific data into folk descriptions relevant to responsibility.
(cut)
KS: Different theories of punishment seem to emphasize different aspects of our cognitive capacities as most important to culpability. Bill and I have argued that deontological accounts which postulate emotional response or empathy as crucial to moral knowledge and decision-making might be more likely to excuse all psychopaths because of their apparent lack of relevant affective data. Some deontological theorists believe that a lack of appropriate emotional response translates into a wholesale lack of legal rationality. A consequentialist theory of punishment, however, may be more likely to hold some psychopaths responsible, because it emphasizes the need for rational capacities as a means to grasp and reflect upon the consequences of action given ones goals and relevant social norms (a skill successful psychopaths may possess), and not the way one feels about these consequences.
The entire interview is here.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Understanding Heidegger on Technology
By Mark Blitz
The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society
Originally published in 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Technology as Revealing
Heidegger’s concern with technology is not limited to his writings that are explicitly dedicated to it, and a full appreciation of his views on technology requires some understanding of how the problem of technology fits into his broader philosophical project and phenomenological approach. (Phenomenology, for Heidegger, is a method that tries to let things show themselves in their own way, and not see them in advance through a technical or theoretical lens.) The most important argument in Being and Time that is relevant for Heidegger’s later thinking about technology is that theoretical activities such as the natural sciences depend on views of time and space that narrow the understanding implicit in how we deal with the ordinary world of action and concern. We cannot construct meaningful distance and direction, or understand the opportunities for action, from science’s neutral, mathematical understanding of space and time. Indeed, this detached and “objective” scientific view of the world restricts our everyday understanding. Our ordinary use of things and our “concernful dealings” within the world are pathways to a more fundamental and more truthful understanding of man and being than the sciences provide; science flattens the richness of ordinary concern. By placing science back within the realm of experience from which it originates, and by examining the way our scientific understanding of time, space, and nature derives from our more fundamental experience of the world, Heidegger, together with his teacher Husserl and some of his students such as Jacob Klein and Alexandre Koyré, helped to establish new ways of thinking about the history and philosophy of science.
The entire story is here.
The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society
Originally published in 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Technology as Revealing
Heidegger’s concern with technology is not limited to his writings that are explicitly dedicated to it, and a full appreciation of his views on technology requires some understanding of how the problem of technology fits into his broader philosophical project and phenomenological approach. (Phenomenology, for Heidegger, is a method that tries to let things show themselves in their own way, and not see them in advance through a technical or theoretical lens.) The most important argument in Being and Time that is relevant for Heidegger’s later thinking about technology is that theoretical activities such as the natural sciences depend on views of time and space that narrow the understanding implicit in how we deal with the ordinary world of action and concern. We cannot construct meaningful distance and direction, or understand the opportunities for action, from science’s neutral, mathematical understanding of space and time. Indeed, this detached and “objective” scientific view of the world restricts our everyday understanding. Our ordinary use of things and our “concernful dealings” within the world are pathways to a more fundamental and more truthful understanding of man and being than the sciences provide; science flattens the richness of ordinary concern. By placing science back within the realm of experience from which it originates, and by examining the way our scientific understanding of time, space, and nature derives from our more fundamental experience of the world, Heidegger, together with his teacher Husserl and some of his students such as Jacob Klein and Alexandre Koyré, helped to establish new ways of thinking about the history and philosophy of science.
The entire story is here.
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