Originally conceptualized by Bandura as the process of cognitive restructuring that allows individuals to disassociate with their internal moral standards and behave unethically without feeling distress, moral disengagement has attracted the attention of management researchers in recent years. An increasing body of research has examined the factors which lead people to morally disengage and its related outcomes in the workplace. However, the conceptualization of moral disengagement, how it should be measured, the manner in which it develops, and its influence on (...) work outcomes are areas of continued debate among researchers. In this article, we undertake a systematic review of research on moral disengagement in the workplace and develop a comprehensive research agenda that highlights opportunities for theoretical and empirical advancement of the literature. (shrink)

We describe and report on results of employing a new method for analyzing lay conceptions of intentional and unintentional action. Instead of asking people for their conceptual intuitions with regard to construed scenarios, we asked our participants to come up with their own scenarios and to explain why these are examples of intentional or unintentional actions. By way of content analysis, we extracted contexts and components that people associated with these action types. Our participants associated unintentional actions predominantly with bad (...) outcomes for all persons involved and linked intentional actions more strongly to positive outcomes, especially concerning the agent. People’s conceptions of intentional action seem to involve more aspects than commonly assumed in philosophical models of intentional action that solely stress the importance of intentions, desires, and beliefs. The additional aspects include decisions and thoughts about the action. In addition, we found that the criteria that participants generated for unintentional actions are not a mere inversion of those used in explanations for intentional actions. Associations between involuntariness and unintentional action seem to be stronger than associations between aspects of voluntariness and intentional action. (shrink)

It is widely held that intuitive dualism—an implicit default mode of thought that takes minds to be separable from bodies and capable of independent existence—is a human universal. Among the findings taken to support universal intuitive dualism is a pattern of evidence in which “psychological” traits (knowledge, desires) are judged more likely to continue after death than bodily or “biological” traits (perceptual, physiological, and bodily states). Here, we present cross-cultural evidence from six study populations, including non-Western societies with diverse belief (...) systems, that shows that while this pattern exists, the overall pattern of responses nonetheless does not support intuitive dualism in afterlife beliefs. Most responses of most participants across all cultures tested were not dualist. While our sample is in no way intended to capture the full range of human societies and afterlife beliefs, it captures a far broader range of cultures than in any prior study, and thus puts the case for afterlife beliefs as evidence for universal intuitive dualism to a strong test. Based on these findings, we suggest that while dualist thinking is a possible mode of thought enabled by evolved human psychology, such thinking does not constitute a default mode of thought. Rather, our data support what we will call intuitive materialism—the view that the underlying intuitive systems for reasoning about minds and death produce as a default judgment that mental states cease to exist with bodily death. (shrink)

For two million years, members of Homo sapiens (and the species from which it emerged) have shaped to their purpose almost everything they found in nature. Yet we are still reproducing by sex. This is a poor method of conceiving human beings, because it surrenders many of the future child’s characteristics to luck. Both parents and children are better off the more parents control their children’s genotypes. The emerging technologies that enable this do not reduce free will and will not (...) eliminate human characteristics (such as certain forms of “mental illness”) that are worth preserving; rather, they will match types of children to parents who can appreciate them. Technological reproduction, not reproduction by sex, should be regarded as truly human. It is the application of the power of thought to human reproduction, and, like the application of that power to external objects and to memes, it will enhance our capacities. (shrink)

Despite the ever-changing field of artificial intelligence (AI) and its preponderance of pre-print articles, Cohen offers a timely, nuanced, and self-aware overview of ChatGPT and the world of Larg...

Arguments from "easy knowledge" are meant to refute a class of epistemological views, including foundationalism about perceptual knowledge. I present arguments from easy knowledge in their strongest form, and explain why other formulations in the literature are inferior. I criticize two features of Stewart Cohen's presentation, namely his focus on knowing that one's faculties are reliable, and his use of a Williamson-style closure principle. Rather, the issue around easy knowledge must be understood using a notion of epistemic priority. Roger (...) White's presentation is contaminated by the so-called lottery puzzle, which is best kept separate. Distinguishing basic from non-basic visual contents limits the force of the examples discussed by Cohen, White, and Crispin Wright. Finally, I present a new strategy for resisting even the best-formulated arguments from easy knowledge. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen was one of the world's leading political theorists. He was noted, in particular, for his contributions to the literature of egalitarian justice. Cohen's classic writings offer one of the most influential responses to the currency of the egalitarian justice question - the question, that is, of whether egalitarians should seek to equalize welfare, resources, opportunity, or some other indicator of well-being. Underlying Cohen's argument is the intuition that the purpose of egalitarianism is to eliminate (...) disadvantage for which it is inappropriate to hold the person responsible. His argument therefore focuses on the appropriate role of considerations regarding responsibility in egalitarian judgment. This volume comprises chapters by major scholars addressing and responding both to Cohen's account of the currency of egalitarian justice and its practical implications and to Cohen's arguments regarding the appropriate form of justificatory arguments about justice. (shrink)

This paper examines the existence of strategic solutions to finite normal form games under the assumption that strategy choices can be described as choices among lotteries where players have security- and potential level preferences over lotteries (e.g., Cohen, Theory and Decision, 33, 101–104, 1992, Gilboa, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 32, 405–420, 1988, Jaffray, Theory and Decision, 24, 169–200, 1988). Since security- and potential level preferences require discontinuous utility representations, standard existence results for Nash equilibria in mixed strategies (Nash, Proceedings (...) of the National Academy of Sciences, 36, 48–49, 1950a, Non-Cooperative Games, Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University Press, 1950b) or for equilibria in beliefs (Crawford, Journal of Economic Theory, 50, 127–154, 1990) do not apply. As a key insight this paper proves that non-existence of equilibria in beliefs, and therefore non-existence of Nash equilibria in mixed strategies, is possible in finite games with security- and potential level players. But, as this paper also shows, rationalizable strategies (Bernheim, Econometrica, 52, 1007–1028, 1984, Moulin, Mathematical Social Sciences, 7, 83–102, 1984, Pearce, Econometrica, 52, 1029–1050, 1984) exist for such games. Rationalizability rather than equilibrium in beliefs therefore appears to be a more favorable solution concept for games with security- and potential level players. (shrink)

This is a new interpretation and analysis of John Rawls's leading theory of distributive justice, which also considers the responding egalitarian theories of scholars such as Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Martha Nussbaum, John Roemer, and Amartya Sen. Rawls's theory, Kaufman argues, sets out a normative ideal of justice that incorporates an account of the structure and character of relations that are appropriate for members of society viewed as free and equal moral beings. Forging an approach distinct (...) amongst contemporary theories of equality, Rawls offers an alternative to egalitarian justice methodologies that aim primarily to compensate victims for undeserved bad luck. For Rawls, the values that ground the most plausible account of egalitarianism are real equality of economic opportunity combined with the guarantee of a fair distribution of social goods. Kaufman's analysis will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of political theory and political philosophy, particularly those working on justice, and on the work of John Rawls. (shrink)

A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference to the concept of (...) truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus. (shrink)

This paper re-contextualizes Karl Popper's thought within the anti-nationalist cosmopolitan tradition of the Central European intelligentsia. It argues that, although Popper was brought up in an assimilated Jewish Viennese household, from the perspective of the Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah tradition, he can be seen to be a modern day heterodox Maskil (scholar). Popper's ever present fear of anti-Semitism and his refusal to see Judaism as compatible with cosmopolitanism raise important questions as to the realisable limits of the cosmopolitan ideal. His (...) inability to integrate an understanding of Jewishness in his cosmopolitan political ideal resulted in his strong opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel. By comparing Popper's positions with those of Hermann Cohen, another neo-Kantian philosopher, I argue that although their solutions fall short in certain respects, their arguments have continuing purchase in recent debates on cosmopolitanism and the problem of the integration of minority groups. In addition, the arguments of the Jewish Enlightenment thinkers offer important insights for the current debates on minority integration and xenophobia. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Ethics of the Fathers The Discourses in this volume were originally preached in German and created a furore at the time of their delivery. They were the author's first efforts in the American Jewish pulpit, which he so conspicuously adorned. Heard by very large audiences, they were eagerly read and discussed throughout the length and breadth of the land when they appeared, week by week, in the columns of The American Hebrew, in hastily prepared translation by his (...) friend Max Cohen, the Librarian of the then Maimonides Free Library. They were afterwards published in book form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Craig Callender, Jonathan Cohen and Markus Schrenk have recently argued for an amended version of the best system account of laws – the better best system account (BBSA). This account of lawhood is supposed to account for laws in the special sciences, among other desiderata. Unlike David Lewis's original best system account of laws, the BBSA does not rely on a privileged class of natural predicates, in terms of which the best system is formulated. According to the BBSA, a (...) contingently true generalization is a law of a special science S iff the generalization is an axiom (or a theorem) of the best system relative to the set of predicates used by special science S. We argue that the BBSA is, at best, an incomplete theory of special science laws, as it does not account for typical features of special science laws, such as attached ceteris paribus conditions and the idealized character of law statements in these disciplines. (shrink)

The Cognitive Integration (henceforth CI) framework posits the existence of integrated cognitive systems (henceforth ICS). In this chapter we outline the nature of ICS and their phylogenetic history. We shall argue that phylogenetically earlier forms of cognition are built upon by more recent cultural innovations. Many of the phylogenetically earlier components are forms of sensorimotor interactions with the environment (Menary 2007a, 2010a, 2016). These sensorimotor interactions are redeployed (or retrained) to service more recent cultural innovations (Dehaene & Cohen 2007). (...) The main aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the CI framework in terms of phylogenetically ancient embodied interactions with the environment and the more recent culturally evolved practices that redeploy our primitive capacities for sensorimotor interactions and manipulations of tools, objects and, in a very recent innovation, public systems of representation. In doing so, we provide a case for the enculturation of our bodies and brains. (shrink)

To date, we know very little about the effects of the differences in attachment classifications on the physiological correlates of stress regulation in adolescent age groups. The present study examined for the first time heart rate and heart rate variability during an attachment interview in adolescents. HR and HRV data were collected during a baseline assessment as well as during the administration of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System in a community-based sample of 56 adolescents. We additionally used the Adult (...) Attachment Interview in 50% of our sample to test the convergent validity. Adolescents with a secure attachment representation showed a higher HRV from baseline to the AAP interview compared to those with an insecure-dismissing and the unresolved group. A comparison between the two insecure attachment groups showed no significant difference related to HR and HRV. Cohen’s Kappa revealed an almost perfect agreement between the AAP and the AAI for the four-group classification. Our results indicate that adolescents with a secure attachment representation are more capable of dealing with attachment-related distress which is represented in higher HRV during an attachment interview. (shrink)

Theories of Early Childhood Education continues to provide a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives in early childhood education from developmental psychology to critical studies, Piaget to Freire. This revised and updated edition includes additional chapters on Michael Alexander Halliday's view of language learning and the attachment theory work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Each author questions assumptions underpinning the use of theory in early childhood education and explores the implications of these questions for policy and practice. (...) Theories reported in this book are a timely reminder of the importance of the relationship between theory and practice necessary for teacher candidates, teacher educators, and early childhood teachers. Students will learn the fundamentals while in-service teachers and professionals will learn the theory behind field observations for their certification exams. (shrink)

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the possibility of developing a Kantian account of the ethics of belief by deploying the tools provided by Kant's ethics. To do so, I reconstruct epistemic concepts and arguments on the model of their ethical counterparts, focusing on the notions of epistemic principle, epistemic maxim and epistemic universalizability test. On this basis, I suggest that there is an analogy between our position as moral agents and as cognizers: our actions and our thoughts are subject to (...) the same rational norm. (shrink)

In Mindblindness, Simon Baron-Cohen presents a model of the evolution and development of "mindreading." He argues that we mindread all the time, effortlessly, automatically, and mostly unconsciously. It is the natural way in which we interpret, predict, and participate in social behavior and communication. We ascribe mental states to people: states such as thoughts, desires, knowledge, and intentions. Building on many years of research, Baron-Cohen concludes that children with autism, suffer from "mindblindness" as a result of a selective (...) impairment in mindreading. For these children, the world is essentially devoid of mental things. Baron-Cohen develops a theory that draws on data from comparative psychology, from developmental, and from neuropsychology. He argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow us to mindread, to make sense of actions, to interpret gazes as meaningful, and to decode "the language of the eyes." A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...) cannot be settled independently of the choice of a particular resolution to the measurement problem. Specifically, we consider how three standard putative solutions to the measurement problem inform our under- standing of a molecule in isolation, as well as of chemistry’s relation to quantum physics. (shrink)

Deliberation and democratic legitimacy -- Moral pluralism and political consensus -- Associations and democracy (with Joel Rogers) -- Freedom of expression -- Procedure and substance in deliberative democracy -- Directly-deliberative polyarchy (with Charles Sabel) -- Democracy and liberty -- Money, politics, political equality -- Privacy, pluralism, and democracy -- Reflections on deliberative democracy -- Truth and public reason.

While it might seem prima facie plausible that divine foreknowledge is all that is needed for prophecy, this seems incorrect. To issue a prophecy, God hasto know not just how someone will act, but how someone would act were the prophecy issued. This makes some think that Middle Knowledge is required.I argue that Thomas Flint’s two Middle Knowledge based accounts of prophecy are unsatisfactory, but one of them can be repaired. However the resources needed for repair also yield a sketch (...) of a foreknowledge-only account of prophecy. (shrink)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid legal decision making has become prominent. This paper investigates the use of AI in a critical issue in employment law, the determination of a worker’s status—employee vs. independent contractor—in two common law countries (the U.S. and Canada). This legal question has been a contentious labor issue insofar as independent contractors are not eligible for the same benefits as employees. It has become an important societal issue due to the ubiquity of the gig (...) economy and the recent disruptions in employment arrangements. To address this problem, we collected, annotated, and structured the data for all Canadian and Californian court cases related to this legal question between 2002 and 2021, resulting in 538 Canadian cases and 217 U.S. cases. In contrast to legal literature focusing on complex and correlated characteristics of the employment relationship, our statistical analyses of the data show very strong correlations between the worker’s status and a small subset of quantifiable characteristics of the employment relationship. In fact, despite the variety of situations in the case law, we show that simple, off-the-shelf AI models classify the cases with an out-of-sample accuracy of more than 90%. Interestingly, the analysis of misclassified cases reveals consistent misclassification patterns by most algorithms. Legal analyses of these cases led us to identify how equity is ensured by judges in ambiguous situations. Finally, our findings have practical implications for access to legal advice and justice. We deployed our AI model via the open-access platform, https://MyOpenCourt.org/, to help users answer employment legal questions. This platform has already assisted many Canadian users, and we hope it will help democratize access to legal advice to large crowds. (shrink)

We use a new model of metarepresentational development to predict a cognitive deficit which could explain a crucial component of the social impairment in childhood autism. One of the manifestations of a basic metarepresentational capacity is a ‘ theory of mind ’. We have reason to believe that autistic children lack such a ‘ theory ’. If this were so, then they would be unable to impute beliefs to others and to predict their behaviour. This hypothesis was tested using Wimmer (...) and Perner’s puppet play paradigm. Normal children and those with Down’s syndrome were used as controls for a group of autistic children. Even though the mental age of the autistic children was higher than that of the controls, they alone failed to impute beliefs to others. Thus the dysfunction we have postulated and demonstrated is independent of mental retardation and specific to autism. (shrink)

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

An examination of the controversial "theory of mind" hypothesis, which states that children with autism are unable to comprehend other people's mental states. The theory relates to the most fundamental questions of normal development as well as to autism i.

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

Some combinations of attitudes--of beliefs, credences, intentions, preferences, hopes, fears, and so on--do not fit together right: they are incoherent. A natural idea is that there are requirements of "structural rationality" that forbid us from being in these incoherent states. Yet a number of surprisingly difficult challenges arise for this idea. These challenges have recently led many philosophers to attempt to minimize or eliminate structural rationality, arguing that it is just a "shadow" of "substantive rationality"--that is, correctly responding to one's (...) reasons. -/- In *Fitting Things Together*, Alex Worsnip pushes back against this trend--defending the view that structural rationality is a genuine kind of rationality, distinct from and irreducible to substantive rationality, and tackling the most important challenges for this view. In so doing, he gives an original positive theory of the nature of coherence and structural rationality that explains how the diverse range of instances of incoherence can be unified under a general account, and how facts about coherence are normatively significant. He also shows how a failure to focus on coherence requirements as a distinctive phenomenon and distinguish them adequately from requirements of substantive rationality has led to confusion and mistakes in several substantive debates in epistemology and ethics. -/- Taken as a whole, Fitting Things Together provides the first sustained defense of the view that structural rationality is a genuine, autonomous, unified, and normatively significant phenomenon. (shrink)

Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.

The present study investigated whether individual differences between psychologists in thinking styles are associated with accuracy in diagnostic classification. We asked novice and experienced clinicians to classify two clinical cases of clients with two co-occurring psychological disorders. No significant difference in diagnostic accuracy was found between the two groups, but when combining the data from novices and experienced psychologists accuracy was found to be negatively associated with certain decision making strategies and with a higher self-assessed ability and preference for a (...) rational thinking style. Our results underscore the idea that it might be fruitful to look for explanations of differences in the accuracy of diagnostic judgments in individual differences between psychologists (such as in thinking styles or decision making strategies used), rather than in experience level. (shrink)

A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.