Experimental Philosophy

CFP: Consciousness and Moral Cognition

Adam Waytz and I are guest editing a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology on consciousness attribution in moral cognition. As a recent post on this blog notes, "two favorite topics of X-Phi are morality and how we perceive the minds of others," so I hope readers of this blog (and experimental philosophers in general) will consider submitting. Guest authors include: Kurt Gray (Maryland), Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh) and Justin Sytsma (East Tennessee State), and  Anthony I. Jack (Case Western Reserve) and Philip Robbins (Missouri). 

Submissions are due March 31, 2011.

The full CFP, including relevant dates and submission details, is available here. 

Here is an abbreviated CFP:  When people regard other entities as objects of ethical concern whose interests must be taken into account in moral deliberations, does the attribution of consciousness to these entities play an essential role in the process? In recent years, philosophers and psychologists have begun to sketch limited answers to this general question. However, much progress remains to be made. We invite contributions to a special issue of The Review of Philosophy and Psychology on the role of consciousness attribution in moral cognition from researchers working in fields including developmental, evolutionary, perceptual, and social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy.

Neuroscience Boot Camp

Penn's Center for Neuroscience & Society--one of the world's leading neuroethics institutes--is once again hosting its annual Neuroscience Boot Camp.  Here is some salient information:

Why?

Neuroscience is increasingly relevant to a number of professions and academic disciplines beyond its traditional medical applications. Lawyers, educators, economists and businesspeople, as well as scholars of sociology, philosophy, applied ethics and policy, are incorporating the concepts and methods of neuroscience into their work. Indeed, for any field in which it is important to understand, predict or influence human behavior, neuroscience will play an increasing role. The Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp is designed to give participants a basic foundation in cognitive and affective neuroscience and to equip them to be informed consumers of neuroscience research.

What?

Through a combination of lectures, break-out groups, panel discussions and laboratory visits, participants will gain an understanding of the methods of neuroscience and key findings on the cognitive and social-emotional functions of the brain, lifespan development and disorders of brain function.

Each lecture will be followed by extensive Q&A. Break-out groups will allow participants to delve more deeply into topics of relevance to their fields. Laboratory visits will include trips to an MRI scanner, an EEG/ERP lab, and a transcranial magnetic stimulation lab. Participants will also have access to an extensive online library of copyrighted materials, including classic and review articles and textbook chapters in cognitive and affective neuroscience.

Who?

College and university faculty, professionals in journalism, law, government and advanced graduate students are encouraged to apply. The only prerequisites are a grasp of basic statistics and at least a dim recollection of high school biology and physics. (A short set of readings will be made available prior to the Boot Camp to remind you about the essentials.)

 

Epistemic Intuitions in Fake-Barn Thought Experiments

David Colaço, Wes Buckwalter and I have recently posted a paper on SSRN reporting a surprising age effect in “fake-barn” style thought experiments.  Here’s the Abstract:

In epistemology, fake-barn thought experiments are often taken to be intuitively clear cases in which a justified true belief does not qualify as knowledge. We report a study designed to determine whether non-philosophers share this intuition. The data suggest that while participants are less inclined to attribute knowledge in fake-barn cases than in unproblematic cases of knowledge, they nonetheless do attribute knowledge to protagonists in fake-barn cases. Moreover, the intuition that fake-barn cases do count as knowledge is negatively correlated with age; older participants are less likely than younger participants to attribute knowledge in fake-barn cases. We also found that increasing the number of defeaters (fakes) does not decrease the inclination to attribute knowledge.

The paper can be downloaded at  http://ssrn.com/abstract=1973351 . 

Wes and I have also posted a substantially revised version of our “Gender and Philosophical Intuition” paper.  It can be downloaded here:  http://ssrn.com/abstract=1966324  

The Essence of Morality is Mind Perception

Two favorite topics of X-Phi are morality and how we perceive the minds of others.  In a recent paper, Liane Young, Adam Waytz and I argue that the very essence of moral judgment is mind perception.   Briefly, we outline the idea that people have a psychological prototype of morality consisting of a moral dyad of two perceived minds - an agent and a patient (i.e., interpersonal harm).   Grounding morality in harm is a bit contentious given recent research, but you can be the judge of whether we've made a good argument for it.

We've solicited a number of official commentaries in Psychological Inquiry, but we'd love to get some more informal feedback.  Here's the paper.  And here - just as a teaser - is the first figure.

Joshua Knobe Interview at 3:AM Magazine

A funky little piece by Richard Marshall, if y'all haven't already noticed.

Gender Differences and Ordinary "Truth"

Suppose one asserts that there is a cat on the mat, when--in fact--there is a cat on the mat.  Is the accuracy of this assertion sufficient for truth?  

In a recent study inspired by Arne Naess’ 1938 ("Truth" as Conceived by Those Who Are Not Professional Philosophers) project, Bob Barnard and I asked respondents about their conception of truth.  Naess' work suggested that there may be significant differences in how men and women think about truth.  We found that men and women differ with respect to the degree to which accurate description or representation is judged sufficient for truth.  In at least some cases, men see accurate representation as a more important component of truth than do women.  In light of these findings we further suggest that men, more than women, would be apt to accept a version of the truth principle often known as "Aristotle’s dictum":

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1011b25)

That these results suggest a gender difference in how a core philosophical concept is characterized by respondents is especially intriguing in light of recent work by Buckwalter and Stich (here), which contends that men and women systematically differ in the intuitions they report in response to canonical philosophical thought experiments.   We would like to present our empirical findings that seem to show that although the conception of truth outlined by Aristotle’s dictum may seem intuitive to the philosopher (Cf. philpapers study here), the data suggest that something else may be at work in the folk conception of truth.   (This study follows up on a related historical project about the relationship between Naess and Tarski (see discussion below), a draft of which is available by emailing one of us, either Joe at oohlah at mac dot com or Bob at rwbjr at olemiss dot edu.)