Psychologists and neuroscientists have recently been unearthing the unconscious processes that give rise to moral intuitions and emotions. According to skeptics like Joshua Greene, what has been found casts doubt on many of our moral beliefs. However, a new approach in moral psychology develops a learning-theoretic framework that has been successfully applied in a number of other domains. This framework suggests that model-based learning shapes intuitions and emotions. Model-based learning explains how moral thought and feeling are attuned to local material (...) and social conditions. Philosophers can draw on these explanations, in some cases, in order to vindicate episodes of moral change. Explanations can support justifications by showing that they are not mere rationalizations. In addition, philosophical justifications are a fertile source for empirical hypotheses about the rational learning mechanisms that shape moral intuitions and emotions. (shrink)

In How We Understand Others: Philosophy and Social Cognition, Shannon Spaulding develops a novel account of social cognition with pessimistic implications for mindreading accuracy: according to Spaulding, mistakes in mentalizing are much more common than traditional theories of mindreading commonly assume. In this commentary, I push against Spaulding’s pessimism from two directions. First, I argue that a number of the heuristic mindreading strategies that Spaulding views as especially error prone might be quite reliable in practice. Second, I argue that current (...) methods for measuring mindreading performance are not well-suited for the task of determining whether our mental-state attributions are generally accurate. I conclude that any claims about the accuracy or inaccuracy of mindreading are currently unjustified. (shrink)

Many political theorists, philosophers, social scientists, and other academics engage in political activism. And many think this is how things ought to be. In this essay, I challenge the ideal of the politically engaged academic. I argue that, quite to the contrary, political theorists, philosophers, and other political thinkers have a prima facie duty to refrain from political activism. This argument is based on a commonsense moral principle, a claim about the point of political thought, and findings in cognitive psychology.

ABSTRACTMichelle Amazeen's rebuttal of Uscinski and Butler 2013 is unsuccessful. Amazeen's attempt to infer the accuracy of fact checks from their agreement with each other fails on its own terms and, in any event, could as easily be explained by fact checkers’ political biases as their common access to the objective truth. She also ignores the distinction between verifiable facts and unverifiable claims about the future, as well as contestable claims about the causes of political, social, and economic phenomena. The (...) social benefits that she claims for the fact-checking enterprise must, at the very least, be weighed against the strong possibility that what passes for fact checking is actually just a veiled continuation of politics by means of journalism rather than being an independent, objective counterweight to political untruths. (shrink)

I extract, and then analyse critically, the epistemological ideas that are implicit in Robin DiAngelo's best-selling book White Fragility and her other writings. On what grounds, according to DiAngelo, can people know what they claim to know? And on what grounds does DiAngelo know what she claims to know?

‘No-platforming’—the practice of denying someone the opportunity to express their opinion at certain venues because of the perceived abhorrent or misguided nature of their view—is a hot topic. Several philosophers have advanced epistemic reasons for using the policy in certain cases. Here we introduce epistemic considerations against no-platforming that are relevant for the reflection on the cases at issue. We then contend that three recent epistemic arguments in favor of no-platforming fail to factor these considerations in and, as a result, (...) offer neither a conclusive justification nor strong epistemic support for no-platforming in any of the relevant cases. Moreover, we argue that, taken together, our epistemic considerations against no-platforming and the three arguments for the policy suggest that no-platforming poses an epistemic dilemma. While advocates and opponents of no-platforming alike have so far overlooked this dilemma, it should be addressed not only to prevent that actual no-platforming decisions create more epistemic harm than good, but also to put us into a better position to justify the policy when it is indeed warranted. (shrink)

It has been argued that implicit biases are operative in philosophy and lead to significant epistemic costs in the field. Philosophers working on this issue have focussed mainly on implicit gender and race biases. They have overlooked ideological bias, which targets political orientations. Psychologists have found ideological bias in their field and have argued that it has negative epistemic effects on scientific research. I relate this debate to the field of philosophy and argue that if, as some studies suggest, the (...) same bias also exists in philosophy then it will lead to hitherto unrecognised epistemic hazards in the field. Furthermore, the bias is epistemically different from the more familiar biases in respects that are important for epistemology, ethics, and metaphilosophy. (shrink)

Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to (...) very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that politically motivated cognition leads progressive individuals to form beliefs that underestimate real differences between social groups and to process information selectively to support these beliefs and an egalitarian outlook. I contend that this tendency, which I shall call ‘egalitarian confirmation bias’, is often ‘Mandevillian’ in nature. That is, while it is epistemically problematic in one’s own cognition, it often has effects that significantly improve other people’s truth tracking, especially that of stigmatized individuals in academia. (...) Due to its Mandevillian character, egalitarian confirmation bias isn’t only epistemically but also ethically beneficial, as it helps decrease social injustice. Moreover, since egalitarian confirmation bias has Mandevillian effects especially in academia, and since progressives are particularly likely to display the bias, there is an epistemic reason for maintaining the often-noted political majority of progressives in academia. That is, while many researchers hold that diversity in academia is epistemically beneficial because it helps reduce bias, I argue that precisely because political diversity would help reduce egalitarian confirmation bias, it would in fact in one important sense be epistemically costly. (shrink)

Most theory in business ethics is still steeped in rationalist and moral-realist assumptions. However, some seminal neuroscientific studies point to the primacy of moral emotions and intuition in shaping moral judgment. In line with previous interpretations, I suggest that a dual-system explanation of emotional-intuitive automaticity and deliberative reasoning is the most appropriate view. However, my interpretation of the evidence also contradicts Greene’s conclusion that nonconsequentialist decision making is primarily sentimentalist or affective at its core, while utilitarianism is largely rational-deliberative. Instead, (...) I propose that current research on the human brain, in conjunction with converging experimental evidence, hints at moral subjectivism and its evolutionary basis as the most persuasive explanation of morality. These anti-realist conjectures have far-reaching implications for a wide range of topics in business ethics, as illustrated with the specific case of corporate social responsibility as a potentially tribal conception of the good. (shrink)

The evolutionary model of moral progress developed in A Better Ape is nuanced and illuminating. Kumar and Campbell use their view of the evolved moral mind to analyze clear cases of increased inclusivity and equality (at least in Western society). Their analyses elucidate the psychological and social mechanisms that can drive moral progress (or regress). In this commentary, I raise three main concerns about their model: that factors other than social integration are more central to progress; that their model isn’t (...) inherently progressive; and that inclusivity and equality conflict with other forms of progress. (shrink)

Moral, social, political, and other “nonepistemic” values can lead to bias in science, from prioritizing certain topics over others to the rationalization of questionable research practices. Such values might seem particularly common or powerful in the social sciences, given their subject matter. However, I argue first that the well-documented phenomenon of motivated reasoning provides a useful framework for understanding when values guide scientific inquiry (in pernicious or productive ways). Second, this analysis reveals a parity thesis: values influence the social and (...) natural sciences about equally, particularly because both are so prominently affected by desires for social credit and status, including recognition and career advancement. Ultimately, bias in natural and social science is both natural and social— that is, a part of human nature and considerably motivated by a concern for social status (and its maintenance). Whether the pervasive influence of values is inimical to the sciences is a separate question. (shrink)

In the epistemology of disagreement literature an underdeveloped argument defending the claim that an agent need not conciliate when she becomes aware of epistemic peer disagreement is based on the idea that there are epistemic benefits to be gained from disagreement. Such benefits are unobtainable if an agent conciliates in the face of peer disagreement. I argue that there are good reasons to embrace this line of argument at least in inquiry-related contexts. In argumentation theory a deep disagreement occurs when (...) there is a disagreement between fundamental frameworks. According to Robert J. Fogelin disagreements between fundamental frameworks are not susceptible to rational resolution. Instead of evaluating this claim I argue that deep disagreements can lead to epistemic benefits, at least when inquiry is in view. Whether rational resolution is possible in cases of deep disagreements, their existence turns out to be epistemically beneficial. I conclude by examining whether this line of argument can be taken beyond research-related contexts.Dans la littérature sur l'épistémologie du désaccord, un argument sous-développé pour une approche non conciliatoire se fonde sur l'idée qu'il y a des bénéfices épistémiques à tirer du désaccord. De tels bénéfices sont impossibles à obtenir si un agent se concilie face au désaccord avec ses pairs, du moins dans les contextes liés à la recherche. Dans la théorie de l'argumentation, un désaccord profond se produit lorsqu'il y a un désaccord entre des propositions cadres. Je soutiens que des désaccords profonds peuvent mener à des avantages épistémiques, du moins dans le contexte de la recherche. Que la résolution rationnelle soit ou non possible en cas de désaccord profond, leur existence s'avère être bénéfique sur le plan épistémologique. (shrink)

Metaphilosophical discussions about the philosophy of religion are increasingly common. In a recent article in Sophia, N.N. Trakakis advances the view that Christian Philosophy is closer to ideology than philosophy. This is because philosophy conducted in the Socratic tradition tends to emphasize values antithetical to religious faith such as independence of thought, rationality, empiricism, and doubt. A philosopher must be able to follow the arguments wherever they lead, something that the religious believer cannot do. I argue that there are two (...) main problems with this view. First, Takakis faces an unpalatable dilemma. It is possible his view recommends a rejection of itself, making it self-referentially incoherent. If it does not recommend such a rejection, then Trakakis’s preferred method is not necessary for genuine philosophical inquiry. Second, Trakakis makes numerous knowledge claims about the psychological motivation of religious philosophers but never offers evidence for these claims. Third, Trakakis never considers that the existence of cognitive diversity is truth conducive. Even if devout religious believers cannot conduct genuine philosophical inquiry, unless Trakakis thinks we should ignore all works by religious believers, then it is irrelevant whether they are genuine philosophy. (shrink)

We may well be witnessing a decisive event in the history of knowledge as diversity is becoming one of the premier values of late modern societies. We seek to preserve and foster biodiversity, neurodiversity, racial diversity, ethnic diversity, gender diversity, linguistic diversity, cultural diversity, and perspectival diversity. Perspectival diversity has become the passage point through which other forms of diversity must pass to become epistemically consequential. This article examines how two of its varieties, viewpoint diversity and educational diversity, have come (...) to transform the moral economy of science. Both aim at multiplying perspectives on a given subject, but their political subtexts differ markedly. The valorization of educational diversity followed a US Supreme Court decision in 1978 that enabled universities to advance social justice, if they justified race-conscious admissions in terms of the pedagogic benefits of a more diverse student body for all. By contrast, the proponents of viewpoint diversity aim at the reform of scientific knowledge production and distribution rather than the reallocation of status and power among different social groups. We examine the political epistemology of viewpoint diversity by analyzing a controversy between social psychologists who, amid the American culture wars of the 2010s, debated how to rein in their political biases in a scientific field supposedly lacking political diversity. Out of this scientific controversy grew Heterodox Academy, an activist organization promoting viewpoint diversity in higher education. By relating and comparing viewpoint and educational diversity, we clarify what is at stake epistemically in the US-centric moral economy of diversity. (shrink)

In recent years, epistemologists have devoted enormous attention to this question: what should happen when two epistemic peers disagree about the truth-value of some proposition? Some have argued that that in all such cases, both parties are rationally required to revise their position in some way. Others have maintained that, in at least some cases, neither party is rationally required to revise her position. In this paper, I examine a provocative and under-appreciated argument for the latter view due to Elgin (...) Disagreement, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 53–68, 2010; The Philosopher’s Magazine, fourth quarter, pp 77–82, 2012; True enough, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017; in: Johnson Voicing dissent: the ethics and epistemology of making disagreement public, Routledge, New York, pp 10–21, 2018). I defend it against a series of objections, and I then identify some fruitful ways in which her view could be developed further. (shrink)

The American political landscape exhibits significant polarization. People’s political beliefs cluster around two main camps. However, many of the issues with respect to which these two camps disagree seem to be rationally orthogonal. This feature raises an epistemic challenge for the political partisan. If she is justified in consistently adopting the party line, it must be true that her side is reliable on the issues that are the subject of disagreements. It would then follow that the other side is anti-reliable (...) with respect to a host of orthogonal political issues. Yet, it is difficult to find a psychologically plausible explanation for why one side would get things reliably wrong with respect to a wide range of orthogonal issues. While this project’s empirical discussion focuses on the US context, the argument generalizes to any situation where political polarization exists on a sufficiently large number of orthogonal claims. (shrink)

:Self-ownership theorists argue that many of our most morally urgent and enforceable rights stem from the fact that we own ourselves. Critics of self-ownership argue that the claim that people own their bodies commits self-ownership theorists to several implausible conclusions because self-ownership theory relies on several vague moral predicates, and any precisification of the required predicates is seemingly too permissive or too restrictive. I argue that this line of criticism does not undermine the case for self-ownership theory because self-ownership theory (...) does not require precisification of each moral concept that it is based on and, even if it did, the theory’s alleged extensional inadequacy does not undermine its justification. (shrink)

As understood today, political correctness aims at preventing social discrimination by curtailing offensive speech and behaviour towards underprivileged groups of individuals. The core proponents of political correctness often draw on post-modernism and critical theory and are notorious for their scepticism about objective truth and scientific rationality. Conversely, the critics of post-modern political correctness uphold Enlightenment liberal principles of scientific reasoning, rational truth-seeking and open discourse against claims of relativism and oppression. Yet, both the post-modern proponents and their Enlightenment liberal critics (...) make up two sides of the same phenomenon of political correctness. Both sides intend to protect a liberal value system from illiberal truth-claims, which is the function of politically correct regulation. While post-modern advocates attempt to promote liberating tolerance, Enlightenment liberals place liberal values above the open-ended search for truth. Despite appearances to the contrary, this socio-academic debate is not about two sides favouring and opposing political correctness. In fact, it is a debate about the type of politically correct regulation that can better guard liberal values. (shrink)

Recent years have seen numerous sociological disagreements devolve into heated debates, with scholars openly accusing their peers of being both empirically wrong and morally misguided. While social scientists routinely reflect on the ethical implications of certain research assumptions and data collection methods, the sociology of knowledge production has said little about how moral debates over scholarship shape subsequent research trajectories. Drawing on the new French pragmatic sociology, this article examines how sociologists respond to criticisms of the moral worth of their (...) research. The article outlines three typical responses: (1) accepting the criticism and changing direction completely; (2) accepting the criticism but changing discursive framing to incorporate existing research without being subject to critique; and (3) navigating through the debate by devising new research directions that do not trigger such criticism. To demonstrate, the article looks at how sociologists of religion responded, in their published scholarship, to criticisms of secularization theory as depreciating religious people and spiritual experience. Across the responses, we show that sociologists have included moral considerations in their empirical investigations, and have switched among several diverse moral justifications to address—and also avoid—criticism. We conclude by demonstrating that this model can be extended to other domains of sociological inquiry, including the study of gender-based wage inequality and methodological nationalism. The article highlights the importance of mapping the moral frameworks sociologists use for the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of morality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is argued that, in certain particular conditions related to the intellectual character of the deliberators and their cognitive diversity, small research teams that engage in deliberation in the analysis of data and involve citizens can better promote good epistemic results than those teams which do not involve citizens. In particular, it is argued that certain communities within the social sciences that lack the relevant cognitive diversity among their professionals can take advantage of the diversity found in the citizenry (...) to increase the epistemic quality of their research, as long as the citizens possess the relevant virtues. (shrink)

This article draws from Charles Taylor’s work of retrieval to advance moral foundations theory (MFT). Taylor’s contribution to MFT lies in his insistence that we retrieve the moral sources that have helped constitute, substantiate, and give meaning to individuals’ moral sensibilities. Applying Taylor’s insights to MFT, this article seeks to advance a view of moral foundations that connects them more explicitly to their underlying moral sources. Using this retrieved account of moral foundations, this article then addresses current issues within moral (...) foundations research and theory. Finally, this article suggests ways in which Taylor’s philosophy can contribute to three areas within business ethics: ethical leadership, behavioral ethics, and ethics pedagogy. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize two recent and influential arguments for no-platforming advanced by Robert Simpson and Amia Srinivasan and by Neil Levy, respectively. What both arguments have in common is their attempt to reconcile no-platforming with liberal values. For Simpson and Srinivasan, no-platforming does not contradict liberalism if grounded on the distinction between norms of free speech and norms of academic freedom; for Levy, those who defend the practice need not be accused of promoting paternalism. I argue that neither (...) view succeeds: these authors’ views are in strong tension with core tenets of liberalism. I proceed as follows: after introducing some basic liberal principles, I explain Simpson and Srinivasan’s argument in more detail and argue that it is too strong for some their stated purposes; then I proceed to show that both Simpson and Srinivasan and Levy’s arguments would justify extremely closed universities; finally, after arguing that Levy’s stance does not circumvent paternalism, I present some evidence that no-platforming would be captured by censors and probably threaten the very academic freedom that the authors want to protect. (shrink)

A popular view in philosophy of science contends that scientific reasoning is objective to the extent that the appraisal of scientific hypotheses is not influenced by moral, political, economic, or social values, but only by the available evidence. A large body of results in the psychology of motivated-reasoning has put pressure on the empirical adequacy of this view. The present study extends this body of results by providing direct evidence that the moral offensiveness of a scientific hypothesis biases explanatory judgment (...) along several dimensions, even when prior credence in the hypothesis is controlled for. Furthermore, it is shown that this bias is insensitive to an economic incentive to be accurate in the evaluation of the evidence. These results contribute to call into question the attainability of the ideal of a value-free science. (shrink)

MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and political movements, such as Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and multiculturalism, were consciously or unconsciously designed by Jews to promote collectivism and group continuity among themselves in Israel and the diaspora and undermine the cohesion of gentile populations, thus increasing the competitive advantage of Jews (...) and weakening organized gentile resistance. By developing and promoting these movements, Jews supposedly played a necessary role in the ascendancy of liberalism and multiculturalism in the West. While not achieving widespread acceptance among evolutionary scientists, this theory has been enormously influential in the burgeoning political movement known as the “alt-right.” Examination of MacDonald’s argument suggests that he relies on systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts. It is argued here that the evidence favors what is termed the “default hypothesis”: Because of their above-average intelligence and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews in recent history have been overrepresented in all major intellectual and political movements, including conservative movements, that were not overtly anti-Semitic. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice occurs when we fail to appropriately respect others as epistemic agents. Philosophers building on the work of Miranda Fricker, who introduced the concept, have focused on epistemic injustices involving certain social categories, particularly race and gender. Can there be epistemic injustice attached to political conviction and affiliation? I argue yes: politics can be a salient social category that draws epistemic injustice. Epistemic injustices might also be intersectional, based on the overlap of politics and some other identity category like (...) race or sex. Further, and more provocatively, I argue that political minorities in academia, in particular conservatives and libertarians, are most likely the victims of epistemic injustice on the basis of their politics. Such epistemic injustices might even be routine. Although more limited in scope and severity than other forms of epistemic injustice, political epistemic injustices in academia ought to be of special concern from a standpoint of social justice because of the academy’s central role in knowledge production and dissemination. (shrink)

This article evaluates an emerging element in popular debate and inquiry: DYOR. (Haven’t heard of the acronym? Then Do Your Own Research.) The slogan is flexible and versatile. It is used frequently on social media platforms about topics from medical science to financial investing to conspiracy theories. Using conceptual and empirical resources drawn from philosophy and psychology, we examine key questions about the slogan’s operation in human cognition and epistemic culture.

Reflecting on the months leading up to and following the 2016 United States presidential election, in an essay published in January of 2017 I argued that the left/right dichotomy of the Democrats and the Republicans was no longer carving at a joint of American politics (Stovall, 2017). Instead, it seemed a more salient political division in the U.S. was that between what I called the urban globalists and the non-urban nationalists. This essay situates the apparent conflict between urban globalism and (...) non-urban nationalism in the context of a development in European self-understanding owed to German idealism. I will articulate this self-understanding by relating it to the period of the European Enlightenment, and in the process I will argue that a theory of collective intentions may point the way toward a more thorough understanding of the phenomena that lie behind the growing opposition between nationalist and globalist tendencies in Europe and the United States today. (shrink)

As it became clear that Donald Trump had a real base of political support, even as analysts consistently underestimated his electoral prospects, they grew increasingly fascinated with the question of who was supporting him (and why). However, researchers also tend to hold strong negative opinions about Trump. Consequently, they have approached this research with uncharitable priors about the kind of person who would support him and what they would be motivated by. Research design and data analysis often seem to be (...) oriented towards reinforcing those assumptions. This essay highlights the epistemological consequences of these tendencies through a series of case studies featuring prominent and influential works that purport to explain the role of race and racism in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It demonstrates that quality control systems, which should catch major errors, seem to be failing in systematic ways as a result of shared priors and commitments between authors, reviewers and editors – which are also held in common with the journalists and scholars citing and amplifying this work – leading to misinformation cascades. Of course, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, prejudicial study design, and failure to address confounds are not limited to questions about Trump – however they seem to be particularly pronounced in this case due to the relative homogeneity and intensity of scholars’ views about this topic as compared to other social phenomena. “Trump studies,” therefore, provides fertile ground for exploring how social research can go awry – and the consequences of these failures -- particularly with respect to work on contentious and politically-charged topics. (shrink)