Eric Schwitzgebel, Fiery Cushman, and Joshua Rust have conducted a series of studies of the thought and behavior of professional ethicists. They have found no evidence that ethical reflection yields distinctive improvements in behavior. This work has been done on English-speaking ethicists. Philipp Schönegger and Johannes Wagner replicated one study with German-speaking professors. Their results are almost the same, except for finding that German-speaking ethicists were more likely to be vegetarian than non-ethicists. The present paper devises and evaluates eleven psychological (...) hypotheses (along with one from Schönegger and Wagner) aimed at explaining why ethical reflection might have motivational influence for this topic but not for others. Three hypotheses are judged to be plausible at this initial stage: generic emotional support, perception of cost as a source of emotional obstacles, and social categorization. (shrink)

In the first controlled, non-self-report studies to show an influence of university-level ethical instruction on everyday behavior, Schwitzgebel et al. (2020) and Jalil et al. (2020) found that students purchase less meat after exposure to material on the ethics of eating meat. We sought to extend and conceptually replicate this research. Seven hundred thirty students in three large philosophy classes read James Rachels’ (2004) “Basic Argument for Vegetarianism”, followed by 50-min small-group discussions. Half also viewed a vegetarianism advocacy video containing (...) factory farm footage. A few days after instruction, 54% of students agreed that “eating the meat of factory farmed animals is unethical”, compared to 37% before instruction, with no difference between the film and non-film conditions. Also, 39% of students anonymously pledged to avoid eating factory farmed meat for 24 h, again with no statistically detectable difference between conditions. Finally, we obtained 2828 campus food purchase receipts for 113 of the enrolled students who used their Student ID cards for purchases on campus, which we compared with 5033 purchases from a group of 226 students who did not receive the instruction. Meat purchases remained constant in the comparison group and declined among the students exposed to the material, falling from 30% to 23% of purchases overall and from 51% to 42% of purchases of $4.99 or more, with the effect possibly larger in the film condition. (shrink)

In the first controlled, non-self-report studies to show an influence of university-level ethical instruction on everyday behavior, Schwitzgebel et al. (2020) and Jalil et al. (2020) found that students purchase less meat after exposure to material on the ethics of eating meat. We sought to extend and conceptually replicate this research. Seven hundred thirty students in three large philosophy classes read James Rachels’ (2004) “Basic Argument for Vegetarianism”, followed by 50-min small-group discussions. Half also viewed a vegetarianism advocacy video containing (...) factory farm footage. A few days after instruction, 54% of students agreed that “eating the meat of factory farmed animals is unethical”, compared to 37% before instruction, with no difference between the film and non-film conditions. Also, 39% of students anonymously pledged to avoid eating factory farmed meat for 24 h, again with no statistically detectable difference between conditions. Finally, we obtained 2828 campus food purchase receipts for 113 of the enrolled students who used their Student ID cards for purchases on campus, which we compared with 5033 purchases from a group of 226 students who did not receive the instruction. Meat purchases remained constant in the comparison group and declined among the students exposed to the material, falling from 30% to 23% of purchases overall and from 51% to 42% of purchases of $4.99 or more, with the effect possibly larger in the film condition. (shrink)

A key challenge in experimental social science research is the incentivisation of subjects such that they take the tasks presented to them seriously and answer honestly. If subject responses can be evaluated against an objective baseline, a standard way of incentivising participants is by rewarding them monetarily as a function of their performance. However, the subject area of experimental philosophy is such that this mode of incentivisation is not applicable as participant responses cannot easily be scored along a true-false spectrum (...) by the experimenters. We claim that experimental philosophers’ neglect of and claims of unimportance about incentivisation mechanisms in their surveys and experiments has plausibly led to poorer data quality and worse conclusions drawn overall, potentially threatening the research programme of experimental philosophy in the long run. As a solution to this, we propose the adoption of the Bayesian Truth Serum, an incentive-compatible mechanism used in economics and marketing, designed for eliciting honest responding in subjective data designs by rewarding participant answers that are surprisingly common. We argue that the Bayesian Truth Serum (i) adequately addresses the issue of incentive compatibility in subjective data research designs and (ii) that it should be applied to the vast majority of research in experimental philosophy. Further, we (iii) provide an empirical application of the method, demonstrating its qualified impact on the distribution of answers on a number of standard experimental philosophy items and outline guidance for researchers aiming to apply this mechanism in future research by specifying the additional costs and design steps involved. (shrink)

A key challenge in experimental social science research is the incentivisation of subjects such that they take the tasks presented to them seriously and answer honestly. If subject responses can be evaluated against an objective baseline, a standard way of incentivising participants is by rewarding them monetarily as a function of their performance. However, the subject area of experimental philosophy is such that this mode of incentivisation is not applicable as participant responses cannot easily be scored along a true-false spectrum (...) by the experimenters. We claim that experimental philosophers’ neglect of and claims of unimportance about incentivisation mechanisms in their surveys and experiments has plausibly led to poorer data quality and worse conclusions drawn overall, potentially threatening the research programme of experimental philosophy in the long run. As a solution to this, we propose the adoption of the Bayesian Truth Serum, an incentive-compatible mechanism used in economics and marketing, designed for eliciting honest responding in subjective data designs by rewarding participant answers that are surprisingly common. We argue that the Bayesian Truth Serum (i) adequately addresses the issue of incentive compatibility in subjective data research designs and (ii) that it should be applied to the vast majority of research in experimental philosophy. Further, we (iii) provide an empirical application of the method, demonstrating its qualified impact on the distribution of answers on a number of standard experimental philosophy items and outline guidance for researchers aiming to apply this mechanism in future research by specifying the additional costs and design steps involved. (shrink)

Are philosophical arguments as effective as narratives in influencing charitable giving and attitudes toward it? In four experiments, we exposed online research participants to either philosophical arguments in favor of charitable giving, a narrative about a child whose life was improved by charitable donations, both the narrative and the argument, or a control text (a passage from a middle school physics text or a description of charitable organizations). Participants then expressed their attitudes toward charitable giving and were either asked how (...) much they would hypothetically donate if given $10 (Experiment 1) or told they had a 10% chance of winning $10 and given the opportunity to donate from their potential winnings (Experiments 2–4). Across the four experiments, participants in all of the narrative conditions and in some of the argument conditions tended to express more positive attitudes toward charitable giving and donated about $1 more on average than did participants in the control conditions. These effects appear to have been mediated by the “narrative transportation” scale, which suggests that appeals to donate can be effective if they engage participants’ emotions, imagery, and interest. (shrink)

Do university ethics classes influence students’ real-world moral choices? We aimed to conduct the first controlled study of the effects of ordinary philosophical ethics classes on real-world moral choices, using non-self-report, non-laboratory behavior as the dependent measure. We assigned 1332 students in four large philosophy classes to either an experimental group on the ethics of eating meat or a control group on the ethics of charitable giving. Students in each group read a philosophy article on their assigned topic and optionally (...) viewed a related video, then met with teaching assistants for 50-minute group discussion sections. They expressed their opinions about meat ethics and charitable giving in a follow-up questionnaire (1032 respondents after exclusions). We obtained 13,642 food purchase receipts from campus restaurants for 495 of the students, before and after the intervention. Purchase of meat products declined in the experimental group (52% of purchases of at least $4.99 contained meat before the intervention, compared to 45% after) but remained the same in the control group (52% both before and after). Ethical opinion also differed, with 43% of students in the experimental group agreeing that eating the meat of factory farmed animals is unethical compared to 29% in the control group. We also attempted to measure food choice using vouchers, but voucher redemption rates were low and no effect was statistically detectable. It remains unclear what aspect of instruction influenced behavior. (shrink)

This paper focusses on our concerns about revelations about sexual harassment in universities and the inadequate responses whereby some universities seem more concerned about their own reputations than the care and protection of their students. Seldom do cases go to criminal court, instead they mostly fall within employment relations policies where the use of non-disclosure agreements are double edged, such that some perpetrators remain nameless even if the person offended against wants details made public. Of course if the staff member (...) does not resign or take retirement prior to potential dismissal, but remains in the institution, the grapevine still works. Universities too often become complicit in cover-ups at the expense of further potential victims of sexual misconduct. It has been with much dismay that we found that despite extensive training and writing about ethics some senior professors in philosophy fields have been accused and found wanting, disabusing us of the virtue assumption. Despite these recent instances where perpetrators have been named and been publicised in the media, we found that this is not in fact new, so not only does the paper look to the past, but also extensively it uses contemporary accounts, reports and documents from USA, UK, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. These seem to be the tip of the iceberg, so our hope is that all students and staff in universities (and in fact all institutions where there are inherent power imbalances) will not only feel safe, but that they will be safe as universities become genuinely ethical institutions. (shrink)

The present article critiques standard attempts to make philosophy appear relevant to the scientific study of well-being, drawing examples in particular from works that argue for fundamental differences between different forms of wellbeing, and claims concerning the supposedly inherent normativity of wellbeing research. Specifically, it is argued that philosophers in at least some relevant cases fail to apply what is often claimed to be among their core competences: conceptual rigor—not only in dealing with the psychological construct of flow, but also (...) in relation to apparently philosophical concepts such as normativity, objectivity, or eudaimonia. Furthermore, the uncritical use of so-called thought experiments in philosophy is shown to be inappropriate for the scientific study of wellbeing. As an alternative to such philosophy-as-usual, proper attention to other philosophical traditions is argued to be promising. In particular, the philosophy of ZhuangZi appears to concord well with today’s psychological knowledge, and to contain valuable ideas for the future development of positive psychology. (shrink)

Expertise has become a topic of increased interest to philosophers. Fascinating in its own right, expertise also plays a crucial role in several philosophical debates. My aim in this paper is to draw attention to an important, and hitherto unappreciated feature of expertise: its brittleness. Experts are often unable to transfer their proficiency in one domain to other, even intuitively similar domains. Experts are often unable to flexibly respond to changes within their domains. And, even more surprisingly, experts will occasionally (...) be outperformed by novices when confronted with novel circumstances within their domains of expertise. In section 1, I marshal the evidence in favour of brittleness. In section 2, I argue that appeals to brittleness can advance the dialectic in debates on skilled action and provide reasons to reject a powerful recent argument offered by Christensen et al. : 693–719, 2019). In section 3, I appeal to brittleness to argue against a common conception of philosophical expertise, according to which philosophers possess a domain-general set of reasoning skills. Although my argument in this section is largely negative, there is a twist. Recalibrating our understanding of philosophical expertise opens new avenues of research for defenders of the so-called ‘expertise defence’ against the findings of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The relationship between professional ethical reflection and corresponding moral behavior is an important theme of moral psychology in recent years. Following Schönegger and Wagner’s research in German-speaking countries, through a replication-extension of the original US-based research carried out by Schwitzgebel and Rust, we aim at examining their results in the Chinese context. The previous researchers have shown that ethical reflection generally has no positive effect on moral behavior. A cross validation of this result was conducted in Chinese mainland, and three (...) issues concerning Confucian virtues were added. Through reaching out to 4482 professors and collecting 368 responses altogether, we attempted to explore whether professional ethical reflection can influence normative attitude and the moral attitude-behavior consistency. Unfortunately, the results failed to show a statistically significant difference between ethicists and other professors on most of the moral issues, with the exception of paying academic membership fees and vegetarianism, wherein ethicists do express more stringent normative attitudes, and their moral attitude and self-reported behavior are statistically consistent. Notably, Chinese professors mainly expressed morally neutral attitudes toward the issue of eating meat, and they tended to believe that ethical reflection contributes to more and better moral behaviors. (shrink)

This essay explains why there are good reasons to practice philosophy as a way of life. The argument begins with the assumption that we should live well but that our understanding of how to live well can be mistaken. Philosophical reason and reflection can help correct these mistakes. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that philosophical reasoning often fails to change our dispositions and behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, the essay claims that spiritual exercises and communal engagement mitigate the (...) factors that prevent us from living in accord- ance with our conceptions of the good life. So, many of us have reasons to engage in philosophical reasoning along with behavioral, cognitive, and social strategies to alter our behavior and attitudes so that they’re in line with our philosophical commitments. In these respects, many of us should practice philosophy as a way of life. (shrink)

In this paper, I bring together Jewish and Buddhist philosophical resources to develop a notion of radical responsibility that can confront a complicity within nursing and health care between empathy and (neo)liberal white supremacist hegemony. My inspiration comes from Angela Davis's call for building coalitions to advance struggles for peace and justice. I proceed as follows. First, I note ways phenomenology clarifies empathy's seeming foundational role in nursing care, and how such a formulation can be complicit with assumptions about private (...) individualism. Second, I turn to the Jewish philosophies of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, and their advocacy for a kind of responsibility that precedes the constitution of individuality as this can provide a resource for action and practice circumventing liberal influenced empathy. I note critical reservations about direct and practical application of Levinasian ethics in nursing care, and turn to engaged Buddhist philosophies of interdependence—such as in Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama—as a corrective. Third, I conclude by indicating ways interreligious radical responsibility can reorient us toward housekeeping habits of character and away from exceptional crisis management, noting specific examples and actions in health care, nursing education and nursing scholarship. (shrink)

This article describes the development and teaching of a course on global engineering ethics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. It outlines course objectives, methods, and contents, and instructor experience and plans for future development. This is done with the goal of helping educators to plan standalone courses and/or integrated modules on global engineering and technology ethics, which address challenges arising from the increasingly cross-cultural and international environments of contemporary technology and engineering practice. These efforts are motivated by the global (...) environments of engineering, as well as recent research in empirical moral psychology. Although this course was developed and taught in China, as a course on global engineering ethics taught to students from throughout the world, its approach could be beneficial elsewhere. (shrink)

Este escrito plantea la complejidad sistémica del concepto crisis moral aplicada en la sociedad contemporánea, especialmente en el caso latinoamericano, lo que exige un estudio interdisciplinario para abordar el asunto. Ahora bien, se alude a una complejidad sistémica de la crisis moral por cuatro aspectos. En primer lugar, porque la moral, al ser un sistema normativo basado en el deseo de una sociedad mejor, nunca se sentirá satisfecha de la sociedad en la que se enmarca, lo que provoca un permanente (...) malestar. En segundo lugar, porque una crisis moral indica que no hay un acoplamiento entre la realidad de lo que se tiene con lo que se quiere, por lo que el acoplamiento deseado supone interrelacionar diversas variables sistémicas para que pueda suceder realmente un desarrollo moral (para lo cual se seguirá, con algunas correcciones, el modelo de desarrollo moral de Kohlberg), variables que son más complejas de lo que el sistema político cree o quiere hacer creer. En tercer lugar, porque afirmar la existencia de una crisis moral y, por tanto, la necesidad de acciones tendientes a resolverla, no implica que haya consenso sobre cuál es la moral que debe aceptarse ni sobre el camino a seguir para lograr dicho fin, para empezar porque es relativamente común que los agentes acusados de ser los causantes de la actual “crisis moral de la sociedad y del derecho” en las sociedades contemporáneas suelen ser los agentes que denuncian, como free riders, la misma crisis. Y, en cuarto lugar, porque un cambio sistémico que posibilite un salto en el desarrollo moral debe ser significativamente fuerte, y las medidas que suelen enunciarse para afrontarlo, además de no ser claras, suelen ser insuficientes o ingenuas (tales como pedir la creación o el fortalecimiento de una asignatura de ética en los planes de estudio de los futuros ciudadanos en general y abogados en especial). Finalmente, se propondrá partir de este diagnóstico sistémico e interdisciplinario para potencializar las respuestas que puedan darse para enfrentar la crisis; de lo contrario, lo rechazado permanecerá. (shrink)