This article uses behavioral theories to develop an ethical decision-making model that describes how psychological factors affect the development of unethical intentions to commit fraud. We evaluate the effects of the dark triad of personality traits on fraud intentions and behaviors. We use a combination of survey results, an experiment, and structural equation modeling to empirically test our model. The theoretical insights demonstrate that psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism affect different parts of the unethical decision-making process. Narcissism motivates individuals to act (...) unethically for their personal benefit and changes their perceptions of their abilities to successfully commit fraud. Machiavellianism motivates individuals not only to act unethically, but also alters perceptions about the opportunities that exist to deceive others. Psychopathy has a prominent effect on how individuals rationalize their fraudulent behaviors. Accordingly, we find that the dark triad elements act in concert as powerful psychological antecedents to fraud behaviors. (shrink)

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. I consider two benefits of rationalization, once we realize that rationalization is sincere. It allows us to work out, under practical pressure of rational consistency, which are (...) good reasons to act on. Rationalization also prompts us to establish meaningful patterns out of merely permissible options. (shrink)

Cognitive enhancement (CE) covers a broad spectrum of methods, including behavioral techniques, nootropic drugs, and neuromodulation interventions. However, research on their use in children has almost exclusively been carried out in high-income countries with limited understanding of how experts working with children view their use in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). This study examines perceptions on cognitive enhancement, their techniques, neuroethical issues about their use from an LMICs perspective.Seven Indian experts were purposively sampled for their expertise in bioethics, child (...) development and child education. In-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured topic guide to examine (1) understanding of CE, (2) which approaches were viewed as cognitive enhancers, (3) attitudes toward different CE techniques and (4) neuroethical issues related to CE use within the Indian context. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed before thematic analysis.Findings indicate Indian experts view cognitive enhancement as a holistic positive impact on overall functioning and well-being, rather than improvement in specific cognitive abilities. Exogenous agents, and neuromodulation were viewed with skepticism, whereas behavioral approaches were viewed more favorably. Neuroethical concerns included equitable access to CE, limited scientific evidence and over-reliance on technology to address societal problems. This highlights the need for more contextually relevant neuroethics research in LMICs. (shrink)

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. This is troubling for views of moral progress according to which moral progress proceeds from our engagement with our own and others’ reasons. I consider an account (...) of rationalization, based on Robert Audi’s, to make clear that rationalization, unlike simple lying, can be sincere. Because it can be sincere, and because we also have a desire to be consistent with ourselves, I argue that rationalization sets us up for becoming better people over time, and that a similar case can be made to explain how moral progress among groups of people can proceed via rationalization. (shrink)

Scrupulosity raises fascinating issues about the nature of moral judgment and about moral responsibility. After defining scrupulosity, describing its common features, and discussing concrete case studies, we discuss three peculiar aspects of moral judgments made by scrupulous patients: perfectionism, intolerance of uncertainty, and moral thought-action fusion. We then consider whether mesh and reasons-responsiveness accounts of responsibility explain whether the scrupulous are morally responsible.

The question ‘ What is addiction?’ seems to ask for a clinical or biological answer. The research on addiction has progressed much faster in biology and neuroscience than our philosophical understanding of that research.1 Therefore, it can be tempting to look to the relevant psychology or neuroscience to answer our philosophical questions, which ends up treating addiction entirely as a psychological or neurological matter. However, many of our questions about addiction are not fundamentally biological or neurological questions. Here, I suggest (...) that an answer to one question about addiction, the question of what addiction is, turns on the decidedly more philosophical. (shrink)

People with Scrupulosity have rigorous, obsessive moral beliefs that lead to extreme and compulsive moral acts. These fascinating outliers raise profound questions about human nature, mental illness, moral belief, responsibility, and psychiatric treatment. Clean Hands? Uses a range of case studies to examine this condition and its philosophical implications.

Scrupulosity is a form of OCD where patients obsess about morality and sometimes compulsively confess or atone. It involves chronic doubt and anxiety as well as deviant moral judgments. This chapter argues that Scrupulosity is a mental illness and that its distortion of moral judgments undermines, or at least reduces, patients’ moral responsibility. The authors go on to argue that this condition challenges popular deep-self theories of responsibility, which assert that one is only blameworthy or praiseworthy for actions that arise (...) from one’s deep self, from what one truly values. Patients with ego-syntonic Scrupulosity, however, identify with their condition and seem to have cares that reflect their deep selves, yet do not seem fully responsible for their actions or their consequences, such as neglecting the needs of their loved ones. Other theories, particularly reasons-responsiveness theories, better capture the ways in which responsibility in Scrupulosity is reduced. (shrink)

Natural ecosystems perform fundamental life-support services upon which human civilization depends. However, many people believe that nature provides these services for free and therefore, they are of little or no value. One nearly forgotten ecosystem service is ecotherapy – the ability of interaction with nature to enhance healing and growth. While we do not pay for this service, we pay significantly for its loss resulting in slower recovery times, greater distress, reduced well-being and losses in those images of nature that (...) contribute to our basic happiness. Little is understood about the ecotherapy benefits of the natural environment and its ecosystem services. The complex and interactive relationship of ecosystems, their services and human well-being is poorly acknowledged in the broad social, philosophical and economic well-being literature. In this article, we examine the role of nature and its ecosystem services in ecotherapy and its associated enhancement of recovery from physical and mental illness. (shrink)

We sometimes want to understand irrational action, or actions a person undertakes given that their acting that way conflicts with their beliefs, their desires, or their goals. What is puzzling about all explanations of such irrational actions is this: if we explain the action by offering the agent’s reasons for the action, the action no longer seems irrational, but only a bad decision. If we explain the action mechanistically, without offering the agent’s reasons for it, then the explanation fails to (...) explain the behavior as an action at all. I focus on cases that result from compulsion or irresistible desire, especially addiction, and show that this problem of explaining irrational actions may be insurmountable because, given the constraints on action explanations, we cannot explain irrational actions both as irrational and as actions. (shrink)

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. This is troubling for views of moral progress according to which moral progress proceeds from our engagement with our own and others’ reasons. I consider an account (...) of rationalization, based on Robert Audi’s, to make clear that rationalization, unlike simple lying, can be sincere. Because it can be sincere, and because we also have a desire to be consistent with ourselves, I argue that rationalization sets us up for becoming better people over time, and that a similar case can be made to explain how moral progress among groups of people can proceed via rationalization. (shrink)

Why characterize addiction at all? George Graham reasonably points out that a good understanding of addiction should exchange “surface resemblances…[for] real facts about explanatory forces”. Understanding causes and cures of addiction will indeed help addicts’ lives more than the best characterization could. But we should beware the false dichotomy. Determining “real facts about explanatory forces” is valuable, and so is characterizing “surface resemblances.”Philosophers’ déformation professionnelle often inclines us to look for essential features of natural phenomena, leading to broad definitions that (...) capture disparate phenomena. But, instead of characterizing addiction in general, why not. (shrink)

En la medida en que se hace cada vez más evidente que la generalización de la lectura y la escritura en las sociedades de la información, la construcción mediática de identidades y la acción automática de los algoritmos de búsqueda como elementos restrictivos de la imagen del mundo constituyen elementos que afectan al desarrollo moral de individuos y comunidades, entendemos que las concepciones rectoras tanto de las acciones como de la comprensión que de sí tienen los individuos remiten a un (...) pensamiento acerca del sujeto, del lenguaje y del ser que difieren con respecto al funcionamiento real de nuestra cultura, aunque parecen resultar indispensables como señuelos que lo hacen posible. El propósito de este texto es apuntar algunas líneas de lectura que expliciten cómo el asunto del cuidado de sí dispone un conjunto de prácticas orientadas a la construcción de la individualidad que suponen una concepción del signo y de la enunciación que conducen a una alternativa con respecto al modo habitual en el que la subjetividad es comprendida en nuestra época. (shrink)

While naturalistic theories have come to dominate the philosophical landscape, there is still little consensus on what “naturalism” means. I trace the origins of contemporary naturalism to a view, called the “fundamental naturalistic impulse,” that originates in Quine’s turn against Carnap and which I take to be necessary for naturalism. In light of this impulse, some “substantively naturalistic” theories are examined: a weak version of non-supernaturalism, Railton’s a posteriori reduction of moral terms, and “Canberra plan” conceptual analyses of moral property (...) terms. I suggest that if we take the fundamental naturalistic impulse seriously, then there is no need to differentiate substantive versions of naturalism over and above methodological versions. Substantive thesis in ontology or semantics can be had on account of one’s methodological commitments. This not only cuts against the distinction between methodological and substantive naturalisms, but also demonstrates just how far method can reach. (shrink)

Is Chomsky left out because he writes about topics of little interest to historians? His books contain arresting arguments about the history of the Cold War, genocide, terrorism, democracy, international affairs, nationalism, social policy, public opinion, health care, and militarism, and this merely begins the list. He ranges across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, paying special attention to the emergence of the United States. Two of his major themes, namely, the "rise of the West" in the context of comparative "global (...) history," are also major areas of interest for professional historians, never more so than today. (shrink)

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.