The application of the formal framework of causal Bayesian Networks to children’s causal learning provides the motivation to examine the link between judgments about the causal structure of a system, and the ability to make inferences about interventions on components of the system. Three experiments examined whether children are able to make correct inferences about interventions on different causal structures. The first two experiments examined whether children’s causal structure and intervention judgments were consistent with one another. In Experiment 1, children (...) aged between 4 and 8 years made causal structure judgments on a three-component causal system followed by counterfactual intervention judgments. In Experiment 2, children’s causal structure judgments were followed by intervention judgments phrased as future hypotheticals. In Experiment 3, we explicitly told children what the correct causal structure was and asked them to make intervention judgments. The results of the three experiments suggest that the representations that support causal structure judgments do not easily support simple judgments about interventions in children. We discuss our findings in light of strong interventionist claims that the two types of judgments should be closely linked. (shrink)

Previous research on counterfactual thoughts about prevention suggests that people tend to focus on enabling rather than causing events and controllable rather than uncontrollable events. Two experiments explore whether counterfactual thinking about enablers is distinct from counterfactual thinking about controllable events. We presented participants with scenarios in which a cause and an enabler contributed to a negative outcome. We systematically manipulated the controllability of the cause and the enabler and asked participants to generate counterfactuals. The results indicate that when only (...) the cause or the enabler is controllable participants undid the controllable event more often. However, when the cause and enabler are matched in controllability participants undid the enabler slightly more often. The findings are discussed in the context of the mental model, functional and judgement dissociation theories as well as previous research on counterfactual thinking. The importance of controllability and.. (shrink)

Moral philosophers are fond of the dictum “ought implies can” and even deontologists normally admit the need to take account of consequences in the design of social institutions. Too often, however, philosophers fail to take advantage of the knowledge provided by the social sciences about the constraints and consequences of alternative forms of social organization. By discussing ideals in abstraction from the problems of institutionalization, they fail at least to see some of the important consequences and costs of a proposed (...) ideal, and sometimes they fail even to understand the ideal itself. (shrink)

This book makes a significant contribution to the contemporary debate about multiculturalism and democratic theory. It reflects upon the ways in which claims about culture and identity are advanced by immigrants, national minorities, aboriginals, and other groups. It argues that liberal democrats should provide recognition and support for minority cultures and identities, and examines case studies from a number of different societies to show how theorists can learn about justice.

This article explores the advantages of using a range of actual cases in doing political theory. This sort of approach clarifies what is at stake in alternative theoretical formulations, draws attention to the wisdom that may be embedded in existing practices, and encourages theorists to confront challenges they might otherwise overlook and to think through the implications of their accounts more fully.

In their perceptive critiques of my recent book on Multicultural Citizenship, Iris Young, Joseph Carens, Bhikhu Parekh and Rainer Forst raise a number of interesting and important issues. In this short response to their critiques, I focus on two of them. First, whereas I tried to draw a sharp distinction between immigrants and national minorities, my critics argue that we should think of ethnocultural groups on a more fluid continuum. Second, whereas I tried to ground a theory of minority rights (...) on specifically liberal principles, my critics argue that such an approach is unduly intolerant of non‐liberal ethnocultural groups. In response to these challenging questions, I try to both clarify and strengthen the positions I outlined in my book. (shrink)

Two studies examined the specificity of effects of explanation on learning by prompting 3- to 6-year-old children to explain a mechanical toy and comparing what they learned about the toy’s causal and non-causal properties to children who only observed the toy, both with and without accompanying verbalization. In Study 1, children were experimentally assigned to either explain or observe the mechanical toy. In Study 2, children were classified according to whether the content of their response to an undirected prompt involved (...) explanation. Dependent measures included whether children understood the toy’s functional-mechanical relationships, remembered perceptual features of the toy, effectively reconstructed the toy, and (for Study 2) generalized the function of the toy when constructing a new one. Results demonstrate that across age groups, explanation promotes causal learning and generalization, but does not improve (and in younger children, can even impair) memory for causally-irrelevant perceptual details. (shrink)

ABSTRACTLibertarians like John Tomasi, who care about social justice, must say more about which economic freedoms matter and why they matter if they hope to persuade liberal egalitarians to adopt their approach. In particular, they must clarify the preconditions of equal freedom and explore more fully the relationship between security and freedom. They must also address questions about collective-action problems and the extent to which the modern corporation should be viewed as an outgrowth and expression of individual freedom. Finally, libertarians (...) should engage more fully with recent feminist literature that challenges the ideal of market-centered self-authorship that Tomasi celebrates. (shrink)

There are challenges to the dominant research paradigm in breast cancer science. In the United States, science and social activism create paradigmatic shifts. Using interviews, ethnographic observations, and an extensive review of the literature, we create a three-dimensional model to situate changes in scientific controversy concerning environmental causes of breast cancer. We identify three paradigm challenges posed by activists and some scientists: to move debates about causation upstream to address causes; to shift emphasis from individual to modifiable societal-level factors beyond (...) an individual’s control; and to allow direct lay involvement in research, which may raise new questions and change how questions are approached, the methods used, and the standards of proof. We use our model to examine controversies about doing scientific research, interpreting scientific results, and acting on science. Ultimately, we aim to understand what impedes construction of new methodologies and knowledge about environmental factors in human disease. (shrink)

Moral philosophers are fond of the dictum “ought implies can” and even deontologists normally admit the need to take account of consequences in the design of social institutions. Too often, however, philosophers fail to take advantage of the knowledge provided by the social sciences about the constraints and consequences of alternative forms of social organization. By discussing ideals in abstraction from the problems of institutionalization, they fail at least to see some of the important consequences and costs of a proposed (...) ideal, and sometimes they fail even to understand the ideal itself. (shrink)

The ability to represent same-different relations is an important condition for abstract thought. However, there is mixed evidence for when this ability develops, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. Apparent success in relational reasoning may be evidence for genuine conceptual understanding or may be the result of low-level, perceptual strategies. We introduce a method to discriminate these possibilities by pitting two conditions that are perceptually matched but conceptually different: in a "fused" condition, same and different objects are joined, creating single objects that (...) have the same perceptual features as the two object pairs in the "relational" condition. However, the "fused" objects do not provide evidence for the relation 'same.' Using this method with human toddlers in a causal relational reasoning task provides evidence for genuine conceptual understanding. This novel technique offers a simple manipulation that may be applied to a variety of existing match-to-sample procedures used to assess same-different reasoning to include in future research with non-human animals across species, as well as human infants. (shrink)

Suggests that illegal immigrants should be offered a path to citizenship.

Irregular migrants are morally entitled to a wide range of legal rights, including basic human and civil rights. Therefore, states ought to create a firewall between those charged with protecting and enforcing these rights and those charged with enforcing immigration laws.

This essay examines Joseph Carens' open borders argument in the light of a case study of recent Somali migrants to the UK. It argues that, although arguments for significantly more open borders are compelling, they must take into account existing domestic injustice in receiving states as well as existing global injustice.

Este artículo quiere ofrecer una visión general de lo que la justicia demanda respecto a la admisión de inmigrantes en Europa y en América del Norte si se aceptan dos presupuestos generales: un derecho general de los Estados a controlar la inmigración y el compromiso con los principios liberal-democráticos. El artículo argumenta que los Estados están moralmente constreñidos en cuanto a los tipos de criterios que pueden utilizar para excluir y seleccionar inmigrantes. En particular, normalmente no pueden utilizar criterios raciales (...) o étnicos en la selección. Más aún, los Estados tienen la obligación de admitir como inmigrantes a los parientes cercanos , o a los ya ciudadanos, a los residentes permanentes y tienen la obligación de aceptar a los refugiados que solicitan asilo. (shrink)

This paper considers normative questions about the integration of legally resident immigrants into contemporary liberal democratic states. First, I ask to what extent immigrants should enjoy the same rights as citizens and on what terms they should have access to citizenship itself. I defend two general principles: (1) differential treatment requires justi.cation; (2) the longer immigrants have lived in the receiving society, the stronger their claim to equal rights and eventually to full citizenship. Second, I explore additional forms of economic, (...) cultural, social, and political integration. I argue that the integration of immigrants depends upon a process of mutual, but asymmetrical adaptation and that it is precisely because the immigrants have to adapt more that the receiving society bears a greater responsibility to take steps to promote equality between the immigrants and the existing population. (shrink)

Joseph Carens develops one of the most prominent cases for open borders in the academic literature on the basis of freedom and equality. Yet the implementation of his social membership theory would mean that immigrants who have not yet lived in a country long enough to become members would be excluded from political and social rights, thus raising the possibility of their domination and subordination by citizens. Given that these problems arise because Carens aims to balance the freedom of individuals (...) with the “claims of belonging” to a political community, can we theorize the relationship between freedom and community differently? French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy does just that, by showing how to think freedom and community as mutually constitutive. Nancy thus offers the resources for an alternative case for open borders, grounded on the claim that the freedom of community entails openness to the outside. Drawing also on Nancy’s account of the common and of democratic politics, my Nancean argument for open borders challenges Carens’s exclusion of nonmembers from the rights of citizens, emphasizing instead the need for an ongoing political struggle to expand who is eligible to claim rights as well as the scope of the rights themselves. (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue 1, Page 97-125, Spring 2022.

In this paper, we investigate the informativeness of 4- to 6-year-old children’s questions using a combined qualitative and quantitative approach. Children were presented with a hierarchical version of the 20-questions game, in which they were given an array of objects that could be organized into three category levels based on shared features. We then tested whether it is possible to scaffold children’s question-asking abilities without extensive training. In particular, we supported children’s categorization performance by providing the object-related features needed to (...) ask effective constraint-seeking questions. We found that with both age and scaffolding children asked more effective questions, targeting higher category levels and therefore reaching the solution with fewer questions. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these results. (shrink)

Journal of International Political Theory, Ahead of Print. Joseph Carens develops one of the most prominent cases for open borders in the academic literature on the basis of freedom and equality. Yet the implementation of his social membership theory would mean that immigrants who have not yet lived in a country long enough to become members would be excluded from political and social rights, thus raising the possibility of their domination and subordination by citizens. Given that these problems arise because (...) Carens aims to balance the freedom of individuals with the “claims of belonging” to a political community, can we theorize the relationship between freedom and community differently? French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy does just that, by showing how to think freedom and community as mutually constitutive. Nancy thus offers the resources for an alternative case for open borders, grounded on the claim that the freedom of community entails openness to the outside. Drawing also on Nancy’s account of the common and of democratic politics, my Nancean argument for open borders challenges Carens’s exclusion of nonmembers from the rights of citizens, emphasizing instead the need for an ongoing political struggle to expand who is eligible to claim rights as well as the scope of the rights themselves. (shrink)

Three experiments examined the influence of argument length on plausibility judgements, in a category-based induction task. The general results were that when arguments were logically invalid they were considered stronger when they were longer, but for logically valid arguments longer arguments were considered weaker. In Experiments 1a and 1b when participants were forewarned to avoid using length as a cue to judging plausibility, they still did so. Indeed, participants given the opposite instructions did not follow those instructions either. In Experiment (...) 2 arguments came from a reliable or unreliable speaker. This manipulation affected accuracy as well as response bias, but the effects of argument length for both reliable and unreliable speakers replicated Experiments 1a and 1b. The results were analysed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and modelled using multidimensional signal detection theory (SDT). Implications for models of category-based inductive reasoning, and theories of reasoning more generally, are discussed. (shrink)

Muchas personas pobres y oprimidas dejan sus paísesen el tercer mundo para veniralas ricas sociedades occidentales. Este artículo sostiene que hay pocas justificaciones para mantenerlos fuera. Su inspiración abreva de tres aproximaciones contemporáneas a la teoría política-la de Rawls, la de Nozick y el utilitarismo para construir argumentos a favor de la apertura de fronteras. El hecho de que, a pesar de sus significativos desacuerdos en otros temas, en esta materia las tres teorías converjan en las mismas conclusiones, fortalece el (...) argumento a favor de la apertura de fronteras y revela su fundamentación en nuestro compromiso en respetar a todos los seres humanos como personas morales libres e iguales. La parte final del ensayo considera los argumentos comunitaristas que objetan la anterior conclusión, en especial los formulados por Michael Walzer. (shrink)

The title of this book refers to a particular construction of the world that brooks no uncertainty: 'things are the way I believe them to be'.

In the case of the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 two primary discourses generative of biopolitics in the global matrix of war can be identified as a framework of knowledge about mobile technologies: first, that national security is threatened by the use of digital information technologies heavily symbolized by the use of mobile devices and the perceived manipulation of otherwise neutral forms of media by those deemed to be enemies; and, second, that national security is enhanced by the utilization (...) of these technologies on the level of individuals and non-state groups within the nation to better practice democracy and to identify as citizen-consumer subjects. In the global matrix of war, the emphasis on digital information technologies and new media — especially mobile iterations — as weapons has generated the subjects of globalized and local technoculture in historically specific, militarized directions. In this context, contemporary media operate in ways that call for critical engagement rather than romanticization of a purely emancipatory sphere of social networking over and against a fully networked, enemy ‘other’. (shrink)

These twenty homes, built between 1854 and 1939, represent the varied architecture in Wisconsin. They offer an intimate tour of residential treasures-- built for captains of industry, a beer baron, Broadway stars, and more-- that have endured the test of time.

For this collection entitled “After Socialism,” we were asked to reflect upon such questions as what rectifications to present market capitalist systems might be desirable and whether there is any viable remnant in the socialist ideal that ought to be preserved. My basic answer to the latter is that the socialist principle of distribution “From each according to abilities, to each according to needs” remains a compelling moral ideal, superior to the resigned, complacent, or enthusiastic acceptance of economic inequality that (...) is offered by defenders of conventional capitalism and by many versions of liberalism. And so, my answer to the former is that the rectifications to present market capitalist systems that would be desirable would be to reduce the deep injustices and social malformations of these systems as much as possible by moving their distributive outcomes in the direction of the socialist ideal. (shrink)

Carens has done more than any other political theorist or philosopher to develop the normative perspective of prospective migrants from within the liberal democratic tradition, but he has not sufficiently engaged with the other side of the argument – in particular, with the value of political community and the principle of collective self-determination. What is at stake for the immigrant-receiving country that might justify its claim to control immigration? I first examine Carens’ theory of social membership and its connection to (...) political community. I then discuss his method of ‘political theory from the ground up’ and his interpretation of democratic principles. I conclude with a discussion of the principle of collective self-determination. (shrink)

Joseph Carens develops one of the most prominent cases for open borders in the academic literature on the basis of freedom and equality. Yet the implementation of his social membership theory would mean that immigrants who have not yet lived in a country long enough to become members would be excluded from political and social rights, thus raising the possibility of their domination and subordination by citizens. Given that these problems arise because Carens aims to balance the freedom of individuals (...) with the “claims of belonging” to a political community, can we theorize the relationship between freedom and community differently? French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy does just that, by showing how to think freedom and community as mutually constitutive. Nancy thus offers the resources for an alternative case for open borders, grounded on the claim that the freedom of community entails openness to the outside. Drawing also on Nancy’s account of the common and of democratic politics, my Nancean argument for open borders challenges Carens’s exclusion of nonmembers from the rights of citizens, emphasizing instead the need for an ongoing political struggle to expand who is eligible to claim rights as well as the scope of the rights themselves. (shrink)

Will Kymlicka’s new book makes important conceptual, methodological, and substantive contributions to contemporary discussions of multiculturalism. Nevertheless, Kymlicka’s attempt to construct a defense of special rights for minority cultural groups on the basis of his conception of “societal culture” entails implications that are both too radical and too restrictive with regard to the kinds of minority claims they support. In particular, Kymlicka’s account undermines the claims of immigrant minorities to the sorts of special rights that Kymlicka thinks they are entitled (...) to demand. (shrink)