DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

This article argues that while Charles Taylor's commitment to anti-naturalism in the human sciences has been constant, the grounds for that commitment have changed significantly over time. What began as his critique of naturalism on empirical grounds was refashioned into a commitment on moral grounds, or more accurately, on the basis of there being no distinctly separable grounds between the scientific and the moral. Taylor shifted his descriptive phenomenological defence of anti-naturalism to cast a much broader critique against an empiricist (...) epistemology he saw underpinning all naturalist approaches in the human sciences. He calls attention to the speciousness of the ontological commitments of an empiricist epistemological outlook that tries to separate human agency from moral ontology, which he argues is itself a moral position. Whether we want to go along with Taylor's specific moral outlook or not, what his arguments about the human sciences teach us is twofold: (1) Taylor's descriptive phenomenology shows how the scientific language of the natural sciences often cannot explain human phenomena without contradiction; (2) Taylor's hermeneutic realism teaches us the extent to which defending an anti-naturalist philosophy of human sciences today necessitates moral argument. (shrink)

Choi and Murphy seek to analyze the key facets of the debate over PC. Until now, PC has tended to be treated in news stories, magazines articles, and reports where the examination of PC has been short and under developed--rarely have the writers looked beyond single issues. Choi and Murphy provide a comprehensive examination of PC, from its philosophical underpinnings and historical background, through the significance of post-structural philosophy and postmodern literary criticism.

Dag Prawitz (1971) put forward the idea that an admissible reduction process does not affect the identity of proofs represented by derivations in natural deduction. The idea relies on his conjecture that two derivations represent the same proof if and only if they are equivalent in the sense that they are reflexive, transitive and symmetric closure of the immediate reducibility relation. Schroeder-Heister and Tranchini (2017) accept Prawitz’s conjecture and propose the triviality test as the criterion for admissible reductions. In the (...) present paper, we will consider two main troubles of the triviality test. The first is the obscurity of a method of evaluating admissible reductions. The second is the circularity problem that the triviality test already assumes the set of admissible reduction procedures. For the solution of the problems, we will propose the spoiler test which immunes the problems of the triviality test and has the role of the criterion for admissible reductions. At last, we shall cover a plausible problem of the spoiler test that can be caused by Crabbé’s case. (shrink)

Why would God institute the practice of efficacious petitionary prayer? Why would God not simply give us what we need before we ask? I examine recently proposed solutions to this puzzle and argue that they are inadequate to explain why an omniscient and perfectly good God would act differently in response to prayer. I propose that God has reasons to not always maximize a creature’s good, even in a sinless world, and that petitionary prayer functions as a means to reward (...) those who trust God, to enable us to actively love those we cannot otherwise help, and to give the petitioner personal evidence of God’s existence and care for her, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing faith. I refine this proposal by responding to several objections involving human responsibility and the epistemology of divine action. Along the way, I offer several ways petitioners can recognize God’s having answered a prayer and how God might help us with some common obstacles to prayer. (shrink)

Brechts Sonettsammlung Studien entstand als Reaktion auf die sogenannte Expressionismusdebatte, die in der Exilzeitschrift Das Wort (1937/38) ausgetragen wurde. Es geht darin um die produktive Nutzung des klassischen Erbes der Weltliteratur. Während die theoretischen Schriften Brechts über diese Debatte in der Forschung viel Beachtung fanden, wurden die Studien bisher marginalisiert. Die Autorin legt erstmalig eine Gesamtdarstellung der Studien vor. Im Zentrum stehen die Bezüge zur Expressionismusdebatte, die sich, wie in der Arbeit gezeigt wird, nicht auf eine «Brecht-Lukács-Debatte» reduzieren läßt. Darüber (...) hinaus werden die Studien editionsgeschichtlich, gattungsästhetisch und im Gesamtzusammenhang des Sonett-Werkes Brechts untersucht. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to ask what the general criteria for identity are and exactly how essence is related to that. Two notions are related to this question: Essential properties (necessary properties) and individual essences. Only the notion of individual essence has been involved in the criteria of transworld identity. The disputes of transworld have centered on the intrinsic properties necessarily connected to thisness. Through introducing a notion of part-rigidity, however, we can see that there can be an (...) entity that does not have an individual essence as an intrinsic property necessarily connected to thisness, the non-part-rigid structure. Being this structure is an intrinsic property that is relational and compositional. An entity that has a relational and compositional intrinsic property as its necessary property seems to have no individual essence. For this kind of entities, just an essential property (or a necessary property) is involved in the criteria of transworldidentity. (shrink)

Dialetheism is the view that there exists a true contradiction. This paper ventures to suggest that Priest’s argument for Dialetheism from Gödel’s theorem is unconvincing as the lesson of Gödel’s proof (or Rosser’s proof) is that any sufficiently strong theories of arithmetic cannot be both complete and consistent. In addition, a contradiction is derivable in Priest’s inconsistent and complete arithmetic. An alternative argument for Dialetheism is given by applying Gödel sentence to the inconsistent and complete theory of arithmetic. We argue, (...) however, that the alternative argument raises a circularity problem. In sum, Gödel’s and its related theorem merely show the relation between a complete and a consistent theory. A contradiction derived by the application of Gödel sentence has the value of true sentences, i.e. the both-value, only under the inconsistent models for arithmetic. Without having the assumption of inconsistency or completeness, a true contradiction is not derivable from the application of Gödel sentence. Hence, Gödel’s and its related theorem never can be a ground for Dialetheism. (shrink)

For the last several decades, dispositional properties have been one of the main topics in metaphysics. Still, however, there is little agreement among contemporary metaphysicians on the nature of dispositional properties. Apparently, though, the majority of them have reached the consensus that dispositional ascriptions cannot be analysed in terms of simple counterfactual conditionals. In this paper it will be brought to light that this consensus is wrong. Specifically, I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, which is generally (...) thought to be dead, is in fact an adequate analysis of dispositions. I will go on to discuss Mumford’s view of dispositions from the perspective of the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. (shrink)

Joseon neo-Confucianism critically reviewed Chinese Chu Zi Studies and transformed it as Joseon seonglihak through intense debates occurred in the process of trying to settle down the problems raised in the contemporary Joseon society. The representative theories of Joseon seonglihak includes sadanchiljeongron(四端七情論, the theory of the Four Beginnings and the Seven Feelings), inmulseongdongiron (人物性同異論, the theory of whether human nature and animal nature are the same or different), seongbeomsimdongbudongron (聖凡心同不同論, the theory of whether the mind of the nobler man and (...) that of the inferior man arethe same or different), mibalon (未發論, the theory of not-yet-aroused). Among these, this article traces the originality of Joseon seonglihak by means of comparing the sadanchiljeongron of Lee Hwang(Toegye, 1501-1570) with the mibalon of Lee Gan (Oeam, 1677-1727). The clause that 'the nature is li [性卽理]' is the central proposition in Chu Zi Studies, whereas the clause that 'the Four Beginnings are the arousal of li [四端理之發]' is the central proposition in Lee Hwang's theory. The clauses that 'the nature is identified with the mind [心性一致]', that 'the nobler man takes li to be the mind', and that 'the mind is the nature and the nature is the mind' are the main claims made by Lee Gan. Chu Hsi takes the nature (the original nature) to be li, Lee Hwang takes the feeling (the Four Beginnings) to be li, and Lee Gan takes the mind (the original mind) to be li. These claims made by Lee Hwang and Lee Gan are fundamentally different from Chu Hsi's theory of mind and nature. (shrink)

Based on a questionnaire survey, this study is the first to systematically focus on Mongolian managers' perceptions of BE. As such, this paper (1) examines Mongolian managers' views of BE, (2) compares BE perceptions in Mongolia to those in the USA, Japan and Korea, and (3) identifies differences and similarities between the four national groups. We find that unethical practices exist and are quite common in Mongolia, where nearly half of the respondents have experienced ethical conflicts during their career. These (...) conflicts mostly arose in relation to respondents' superiors and colleagues and were related to fairness or discrimination. The results indicate that in their (un)ethical decision-making, Mongolian mangers are situational, but also place importance on the behaviour of their superiors. Finally, situational questions revealed that unlike respondents from the other three national groups, Mongolian managers do not see a significant difference between their own BE attitudes and those of an average manager. (shrink)

The aporia of violence is probably the single most important issue that defines the failure of the leftist revolutionary politics as was experienced in modern history. It is what prevented it from ultimately achieving its goal by entrapping it in the perverse effect of the sovereign violence. As is well known, Slavoj Žižek in his book, Violence, proposes us to return to the practice of messianic or divine violence that Walter Benjamin conceptualized in contrast to that of mythical violence. But, (...) such an idea of messianic violence was not just Benjamin’s, but in fact, a predominant one in the long tradition of Marxism including Marx himself. It is then hard to see how a simple return to the practice of messianic violence will assist us better than it used to in discovering alternative ways to think about violence. In this paper, I would like to engage myself in a close reading of Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser’s discussions of violence, hoping to find such alternatives. On the issue of violence Lacan and Althusser both converge and diverge. While examining such a crossroad of sive— in both senses of the term: identity and difference—I will in the end emphasize the need to reconsider the notion of representation, which one may no longer easily put aside as opportunistic. (shrink)

Tandis que « Matière et mémoire » de Bergson est aujourd’hui bien connu et relativement bien analysé, « Les maladies de la mémoire » de Ribot est presque oublié malgré son originalité et nouveauté dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Mais dans le domaine de la science, notamment dans des recherches sur la mémoire, la pensée de Ribot est toujours vivante. Dans cet article, nous voulons d’abord voir la relation entre deux pensées sur la mémoire, celle de Ribot et celle de (...) Bergson, et ensuite nous vérifierons comment traiter aujourd’hui l’héritage de la pensée de Ribot et de Bergson dans le domaine de la philosophie et de la science. A travers ces recherches, nous allons comprendre que le désaccord de Bergson avec Ribot vient de la différence méthodologique entre deux philosophes et que cette différence suscite deux pensées complètement différentes l’une à l’autre. (shrink)

The condition, known as mirror-touch synesthesia, is related to the activity of mirror neurons, cells recently discovered to fire not only when some animals perform some behavior, such as climbing a tree, but also when they watch another animal do the behavior. For "synesthetes," it's as if their mirror neurons are on overdrive.

Is it possible that one and the same object x has opposing dispositions at the same time? One's first reaction might be that it is evidently impossible. On the assumption that x is incombustible, it seems to follow that it is not combustible. Surprisingly enough, however, it is claimed that there are a number of examples in support of the possibility of simultaneous co-instantiation of opposing dispositions. In this paper, I will bring under scrutiny some of the examples and come (...) to the conclusion that none of them achieve the desired goal. This will give support to the initial intuition that opposing dispositions cannot be co-instantiated by one and the same object at the same time. (shrink)

Matarese (2022) argued in a commentary that Machery’s (2020) resampling account of replication (RAR) is unsatisfactory because it was too quick to abolish the distinction between direct and conceptual replications. Although Matarese agrees with Machery that some interpretations of conceptual replications are misconceived, she offers an interpretation which purports to show that direct and conceptual replications have different functions, and this justifies preserving the distinction. In this commentary, I will defend the RAR from Matarese’s argument. Most importantly, I will argue (...) that Matarese’s interpretation of conceptual replications is conceptually impossible. Thus, I conclude that the direct–conceptual distinction was rightly abolished by Machery. (shrink)

Relational database management system is the most popular database system. It is important to maintain data security from information leakage and data corruption. RDBMS can be attacked by an outsider or an insider. It is difficult to detect an insider attack because its patterns are constantly changing and evolving. In this paper, we propose an adaptive database intrusion detection system that can be resistant to potential insider misuse using evolutionary reinforcement learning, which combines reinforcement learning and evolutionary learning. The model (...) consists of two neural networks, an evaluation network and an action network. The action network detects the intrusion, and the evaluation network provides feedback to the detection of the action network. Evolutionary learning is effective for dynamic patterns and atypical patterns, and reinforcement learning enables online learning. Experimental results show that the performance for detecting abnormal queries improves as the proposed model learns the intrusion adaptively using Transaction Processing performance Council-E scenario-based virtual query data. The proposed method achieves the highest performance at 94.86%, and we demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method by performing 5-fold cross-validation. (shrink)

It is often said that in a purely formal perspective, intuitionistic logic has no obvious advantage to deal with the liar-type paradoxes. In this paper, we will argue that the standard intuitionistic natural deduction systems are vulnerable to the liar-type paradoxes in the sense that the acceptance of the liar-type sentences results in inference to absurdity (⊥). The result shows that the restriction of the Double Negation Elimination (DNE) fails to block the inference to ⊥. It is, however, not the (...) problem of the intuitionistic approaches to the liar-type paradoxes but the lack of expressive power of the standard intuitionistic natural deduction system. We introduce a meta-level negation for a given system and a meta-level absurdity, ⋏, to the intuitionistic system. We shall show that in the system, the inference to ⊥ is not given without the assumption that the system is complete. Moreover, we consider the Double Meta-Level Negation Elimination rules (DMNE) which implicitly assume the completeness of the system. Then, the restriction of DMNE can rule out the inference to ⊥. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Richard Holton’s defence of dispositionalism that all properties are essentially dispositional. By way of countering the objection that dispositionalism generates an infinite regress, Holton attempts to advance a consistent model of possible worlds where all truths are dispositional truths. But I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, on which Holton’s model is built, is so mistaken that Holton’s model fails to serve his goal. What is more, it is not likely that (...) we can successfully materialize the driving idea of Holton’s model on an appropriately revised version of the conditional analysis of dispositions. Finally, I will discuss the lesson on the methodology of philosophy that we can learn from Holton’s failure. (shrink)

The idea that dispositions are an intrinsic matter has been popular among contemporary philosophers of dispositions. In this paper I will first state this idea as exactly as possible. I will then examine whether it poses any threat to the two current versions of the conditional analysis of dispositions, namely, the simple and reformed conditional analysis of dispositions. The upshot is that the intrinsic nature of dispositions, when properly understood, doesn't spell trouble for either of the two versions of the (...) conditional analysis of dispositions. Along the way, I will propose an extensionally correct and practically useful criterion for identifying nomically intrinsic dispositions and criticize one objection raised by Lewis against the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. (shrink)

In his book Ockham on Concepts, Claude Panaccio suggests a strong externalist interpretation (SE) of Ockham’s view on perceptual content. I argue that his SE is in conflict with his another interpretation of Ockham’s view on conceptual similitude.

Background: Whenever there has been a worldwide contagious disease outbreak, there have been reports of infection and death of healthcare workers. Particularly because emergency nurses have contact with patients on the front line, they experience ethical problems in nursing while struggling with infectious diseases in an unfavorable environment. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore emergency nurses’ ethical problems and to identify factors influencing these problems during the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome–coronavirus in Korea. Design and sample: (...) For this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire survey was conducted with emergency nurses working in six hospitals selected through convenience sampling from the hospitals designated for Middle East respiratory syndrome–coronavirus patients in the capital area. Methods: Data were collected from 169 emergency nurses in Korea during August 2015. Ethical considerations: This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of G University in Korea. Results: The findings of this study suggest that during the Middle East respiratory syndrome–coronavirus outbreak, emergency nurses experienced ethical problems tied to a mind-set of avoiding patients. Three factors were found to influence emergency nurses’ ethical problems (in order of influence): cognition of social stigmatization, level of agreement with infection control measures, and perceived risk. Conclusion: Through this study, we obtained information on emergency nurses’ ethical problems during the Middle East respiratory syndrome–coronavirus outbreak and identified the factors that influence them. As found in this study, nurses’ ethical problems were influenced most by cognitions of social stigmatization. Accordingly, to support nurses confidently care for people during future health disasters, it is most urgent to promote appropriate public consciousness that encourages healthcare workers. (shrink)

This essay examines how eighteenth-century naturalists selected, read, and used textual and visual sources of the past to construct chronologies of the aurora borealis from antiquity to their present. Frequent sightings of the northern lights in Europe from 1707 onward prompted investigations into not only their physical properties but also their historical patterns. These searches encountered a twofold problem. Because the term “aurora borealis” was a seventeenth-century neologism, the recovery of auroras avant la lettre required discerning them amid the various (...) aerial spectacles described in older records. Further complicating the task was the eighteenth-century authors’ suspicion of these documents as tainted by the superstitions of an “unenlightened” past. Nevertheless, these self-proclaimed “enlightened” commentators relied on the very sources they criticized in their search for lost auroras. The essay investigates how different Enlightenment auroral observers fashioned their own criteria for identifying “true” auroras through practices of extricating verbal and visual descriptions in older sources from their original contexts of portentous interpretation. (shrink)

The lack of attention to sustainability, as a concept with multiple dimensions, has presented a developmental gap in green marketing literature, sustainability, and marketing literature for decades. Based on the established premise of customer–corporate (C–C) identification, in which consumers respond favorably to companies with corporate social responsibility initiatives that they identify with, we propose that consumers would respond similarly to companies with sustainability initiatives. We postulate that consumers care about protecting and preserving favorable economic environments (an economic dimension of sustainability) (...) as much as they care about natural environments. Thus, we investigate how two sustainability dimensions (i.e., environmental and economic) and price can influence consumer responses. Using an experimental method, we demonstrate that consumers favor sustainability in both dimensions by giving positive evaluations of the company and purchase intent. In addition, consumers respond more negatively to poor company sustainability than to high company sustainability. In comparison, consumers respond more negatively to the company’s poor commitment to caring for the environment than to the company’s poor commitment to economic sustainability. We also find that consumers do not respond favorably to low prices when they have information about the firm’s poor environmental sustainability. Finally, we find support for an interaction effect between consumer support for sustainability and corporate sustainability; that is, consumers evaluate a company more favorably if the company shares the consumers’ social causes. Overall, we conclude, from our empirical study, support for the idea that consumers do respond to multiple dimensions of sustainability. (shrink)

Neil Tennant was the first to propose a proof-theoretic criterion for paradoxicality, a framework in which a paradox, formalized through natural deduction, is derived from an unacceptable conclusion that employs a certain form of id est inferences and generates an infinite reduction sequence. Tennant hypothesized that any derivation in natural deduction that formalizes a genuine paradox would meet this criterion, and he argued that while the liar paradox is genuine, Russell's paradox is not. -/- The present paper delves into Tennant's (...) conjecture for genuine paradoxes and suggests that to validate the conjecture, one of two issues must be addressed. The first issue is the need for a philosophical consensus on the identification of a genuine paradox in an informal sense. The second issue is the requirement for a uniform approach to formalize paradoxes in natural deduction. If either of these issues is addressed, the conjecture could be validated, or at the very least, it could hold philosophical importance in delineating the proof-theoretic features of paradoxicality. (shrink)

This book investigates the different meanings and logics that the notion of qi/gi has acquired within the East Asian traditions in order to understand the diversity of these traditions. More specifically, this work focuses on investigating how the notion was understood by traditional Chinese and Korean philosophers.

Should we defer to or strongly prefer the majority opinion in theology, whether it be the majority opinion over the history of the church (as in G. K. Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead”) or the majority opinion of contemporary theologians? I argue that because of the vast differences in accessible evidence between past and present-day theologians, diachronic majority opinion is not a good indicator of where the truth lies. In the synchronic case, ignorance of minority arguments, biases, selection effects, and (...) the difficulty to deciding who gets to vote present many opportunities for majorities to be wrong. Finally, I consider whether the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit could rescue the democracy of the dead, but conclude that given the gentle way God corrects us, diachronic majority opinion, apart from belief in a very basic set of truths, is not epistemically bolstered by the Spirit. (shrink)

Elizabeth Prior claims that dispositional predicates are incomplete in the sense that they have more than one argument place. To back up this claim, she offers a number of arguments that involve such ordinary dispositional predicates as ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’, and so on. In this paper, I will first demonstrate that one of Prior’s arguments that ‘is fragile’ is an incomplete predicate is mistaken. This, however, does not immediately mean that Prior is wrong that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. On the (...) contrary, I maintain that she has offered another valid argument that does indeed establish the claim that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. I will argue further that Prior is right that ‘soluble’ is an incomplete predicate. Then does this mean that all dispositional predicates are incomplete? I don’t think so. I will suggest that there are complete dispositional predicates that have no more than one argument place. Finally, by relying on my discussion of the incompleteness of dispositional predicates, I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the context-dependence and intrinsic nature of dispositional ascriptions. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the relationship between aesthetics and theological ethics. The primary question it seeks to answer is whether artistic creativity is a morally relevant activity. Drawing on the work of Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Aquinas, Choi argues that the arts are the cultural medium through which we can better understand what is morally possible, and that aesthetic objects can serve as snapshots of a particular community's perspectives on the good life. Art, in other words, offers glimpses not only (...) into competing moral visions within society but also the extent to which these contested moral views are understood. The arts, in Choi's view, provide a way of assessing the limits and possibilities of moral reasoning, the contextuality of moral discernment, and the need for moral thinking that is dialogical and dialectical. (shrink)

We evaluated the reliability, validity, and differential item functioning (DIF) of a shorter version of the Defining Issues Test-1 (DIT-1), the behavioral DIT (bDIT), measuring the development of moral reasoning. 353 college students (81 males, 271 females, 1 not reported; age M = 18.64 years, SD = 1.20 years) who were taking introductory psychology classes at a public University in a suburb area in the Southern United States participated in the present study. First, we examined the reliability of the bDIT (...) using Cronbach’s α and its concurrent validity with the original DIT-1 using disattenuated correlation. Second, we compared the test duration between the two measures. Third, we tested the DIF of each question between males and females. Findings reported that first, the bDIT showed acceptable reliability and good concurrent validity. Second, the test duration could be significantly shortened by employing the bDIT. Third, DIF results indicated that the bDIT items did not favour any gender. Practical implications of the present study based on the reported findings are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to some influential readings of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the view presented there of the kind of spontaneity we are conscious of through theoretical reason and...

This study analyzed the national data on life-sustaining treatment decisions from 2018 to 2020 to find out the characteristics of South Korea’s end-of-life procedure according to the decision-making approach and process. We collected the data of 84,422 patients registered with the National Agency for Management of Life-sustaining Treatment. We divided the patients into four groups (G1, G2, G3, and G4) according to the decision-making approach. A descriptive analysis of each group was conducted using indicators such as the patient’s age, status, (...) diagnosis, and content of forgoing life-sustaining treatment. Additionally, logistic regression analysis was performed by dividing the patients into self-determining (G1, G2) and non-self-determining patients (G3, G4). Cancer was the most common diagnosis for each group. The period from life-sustaining treatment decision to implementation was 10.76, 1.01, 0.86, and 1.19 days for G1, G2, G3, and G4, respectively. In the logistic regression analysis, the self-determination ratio was higher for 40–49 years old and lower for cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal disease. Age was has a major impact on life-sustaining treatment decisions (LSTD), and with increase in age, the family, and not the patient, made the LSTD. The LSTD method also differed depending on the disease. The self-determination rates of patients with circulatory or digestive diseases were somewhat lower than that of those with neoplastic diseases. The period from decision-making to implementation is short for end-of-life care. (shrink)

Introduction The Defining Issues Test (DIT) aimed to measure one’s moral judgment development in terms of moral reasoning. The Neo-Kohlbergian approach, which is an elaboration of Kohlbergian theory, focuses on the continuous development of postconventional moral reasoning, which constitutes the theoretical basis of the DIT. However, very few studies have directly tested the internal structure of the DIT, which would indicate its construct validity. Objectives Using the DIT-2, a later revision of the DIT, we examined whether a bi-factor model or (...) 3-factor CFA model showed a better model fit. The Neo-Kohlbergian theory of moral judgment development, which constitutes the theoretical basis for the DIT-2, proposes that moral judgment development occurs continuously and that it can be better explained with a soft-stage model. Given these assertions, we assumed that the bi-factor model, which considers the Schema-General Moral Judgment (SGMJ), might be more consistent with Neo-Kohlbergian theory. Methods We analyzed a large dataset collected from undergraduate students. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) via weighted least squares. A 3-factor CFA based on the DIT-2 manual and a bi-factor model were compared for model fit. The three factors in the 3-factor CFA were labeled as moral development schemas in Neo-Kohlbergian theory (i.e., personal interests, maintaining norms, and postconventional schemas). The bi-factor model included the SGMJ in addition to the three factors. Results In general, the bi-factor model showed a better model fit compared with the 3-factor CFA model although both models reported acceptable model fit indices. Conclusion We found that the DIT-2 scale is a valid measure of the internal structure of moral reasoning development using both CFA and bi-factor models. In addition, we conclude that the soft-stage model, posited by the Neo-Kohlbergian approach to moral judgment development, can be better supported with the bi-factor model that was tested in the present study. (shrink)