Certain predictions are such that their accuracy can be affected by their dissemination, by their being believed and acted upon. Examples of such reflexive predictions are presented. Various approaches to the precise delineation of this category of predictions are explored, and a definition is proposed and defended. Next it is asked whether the possible reflexivity of predictions creates a serious methodological problem for the social sciences. A distinction between causal and logical reflexivity helps support a negative answer. Finally, we consider (...) the thesis that "this characteristic of predictions is peculiar to human affairs" (Merton), and an attempted rebuttal (Grunbaum). It is argued that Grunbaum's rebuttal is ineffective. (shrink)

In “Emergent Ghosts of the Emotion Machine,” James Coan neglects emotion displays involved in social communication and activity in central neurochemical systems associated with drug-induced changes in feelings and desires. Also, he fails to recognize that emotions are not rigidly bound to action tendencies, but rather have evolved internal signals to afford flexibility of response. Emotion indices naturally lack close coordination because different aspects—physiological arousal, expressive display, subjective experience—are differentially accessible to the responder and interaction partner, and therefore undergo different (...) social learning histories. Emotions are entities both at the biological level, involving special-purpose primes, and at the ecological level, involving displays reflecting communicative demands characteristic of a species. Language, not emotion, is the ghost in the machine. (shrink)

Primary affects exist at an ecological-communicative level of analysis, and therefore are not identifiable with specific brain regions. The constructionist view favored in the target article, that emotions emerge from does not specify the nature of these processes. These more basic processes may actually involve specific neurochemical systems, that is, primary motivational-emotional systems (primes), associated with specific feelings and desires that combine to form the of experienced emotion.

Self-organizing dynamic systems (DS) modeling is appropriate to conceptualizing the relationship between emotion and cognition-appraisal. Indeed, DS modeling can be applied to encompass and integrate additional phenomena at levels lower than emotional interpretations (genes), at the same level (motives), and at higher levels (social, cognitive, and moral emotions). Also, communication is a phenomenon involved in dynamic system interactions at all levels.

The very nature of terrorism and the context in which it typically occurs make responding to it much more complicated, morally speaking, than responding to conventional military attacks. Two points are particularly important here: (1) terrorism often arises in the midst of conflicts that can only be resolved at the negotiating table; (2) responses to terrorist acts almost always present significant risks to the lives and well-being of noncombatants. The history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict suggests that its resolution will only (...) come through negotiation. However, Israel has an obligation to secure the safety of its citizens. In this context, responses to terrorism must be judged, morally speaking, by how well they balance the following competing aims: (1) protecting the lives of potential victims of terror; (2) protecting the lives of noncombatants living among the terrorists; and (3) preserving the possibility for negotiating the end of the conflict. My aim in this paper is to show that responses against terrorists need not be retributive in aim, and can therefore satisfy these competing demands. (shrink)

The very nature of terrorism and the context in which it typically occurs make responding to it much more complicated, morally speaking, than responding to conventional military attacks. Two points are particularly important here: (1) terrorism often arises in the midst of conflicts that can only be resolved at the negotiating table; (2) responses to terrorist acts almost always present significant risks to the lives and well-being of noncombatants. The history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict suggests that its resolution will only (...) come through negotiation. However, Israel has an obligation to secure the safety of its citizens. In this context, responses to terrorism must be judged, morally speaking, by how well they balance the following competing aims: (1) protecting the lives of potential victims of terror; (2) protecting the lives of noncombatants living among the terrorists; and (3) preserving the possibility for negotiating the end of the conflict. My aim in this paper is to show that responses against terrorists need not be retributive in aim, and can therefore satisfy these competing demands. (shrink)

Rachlin uses the word “choice” 80 times, whereas “emotion” does not appear. In contrast, “Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases” by Preston and de Waal, uses the word “emotion” 139 times and “choice” once. This commentary compares these ways of approaching empathy and altruism, relating Rachlin's approach to Gilligan's Morality of Justice and Preston and de Waal's to the Morality of Caring.

Our purpose in this paper is to characterize the methodological role of judges in clinical psychology. What, methodologically speaking, do the judges do for the experimenter in this area? Why, and in what ways, are the experimenter's procedures more respectable, his results more valid, when he employs judges? In order to present a concrete example of the use of judges we begin by describing in some detail a procedure actually employed in the testing of an hypothesis. Next we contrast this (...) procedure with a prima facie analogous one from chemistry, noting that an appeal to judges here would be clearly superfluous. Our problem then presents itself in the form: “Why these sorts of differences between chemistry and clinical psychology?”. As the argument develops it becomes clear that the methodological significance of what is called “clinical insight” must be carefully considered in any attempt to understand the peculiar importance of the judges’ role in psychology. It is argued that the absence of precise criteria for typical concepts of clinical psychology is closely connected with the frequent appeals to clinical insight. And it is urged that the full significance of the employment of judges emerges only when seen in the light of this conceptual uncertainty, and of the clinician's attempt to operate scientifically in spite of that uncertainty. (shrink)

Motivation and emotion are not clearly defined and differentiated in Rolls's The brain and emotion, reflecting a widespread problem in conceptualizing these phenomena. An adequate theory of emotion cannot be based upon reward and punishment alone. Basic mechanisms of arousal, agonistic, and prosocial motives-emotions exist in addition to reward-punishment systems.

In Political Liberalism and the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" John Rawls argues that citizens must refrain from introducing sectarian values intopolitical debate over fundamental political questions unless the positions they are endorsing can be supported by public reasons. I will argue that this duty allows for a more limited use of non-public ideas and values than is suggested in Rawls's discussion. ln addition, I will argue that reconciliation between citizens and the reinvigoration of free exchange and debate (...) both call for an extension of this duty to debate over issues that are of immediate concern to citizens. I argue that public reason requires citizens to support only those public policies which can be defended by appeal to liberal political values (values such as comity, social stability, equality, happiness), and to sincerely affirm liberal political values as the ultimate justification of the use of state power to implement the public policies they support. (shrink)

In Political Liberalism and the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" John Rawls argues that citizens must refrain from introducing sectarian values intopolitical debate over fundamental political questions unless the positions they are endorsing can be supported by public reasons. I will argue that this duty allows for a more limited use of non-public ideas and values than is suggested in Rawls's discussion. ln addition, I will argue that reconciliation between citizens and the reinvigoration of free exchange and debate (...) both call for an extension of this duty to debate over issues that are of immediate concern to citizens. I argue that public reason requires citizens to support only those public policies which can be defended by appeal to liberal political values (values such as comity, social stability, equality, happiness), and to sincerely affirm liberal political values as the ultimate justification of the use of state power to implement the public policies they support. (shrink)

My project in the dissertation is to develop a constructivist account of the normative structure of political or civil obligations. The first part of the dissertation focuses on Kant's moral and political constructivism respectively. In chapter two I argue that Kant's account of the normativity of moral obligations is rooted in the idea of moral community which is an objective end that is built into the structure of our practical reasoning. Moral obligations are justified for Kant because they reflect our (...) rational agency and, in particular, the interest we have in promoting a moral community. ;In chapter three I focus on what Kant's idea of the problem of politics: the construction of a society that can successfully and universally administer justice while promoting the interest each citizen has in living in realizing their full capacities as autonomous human beings. I argue that Kant is unable to show that civil obligation---the duties we have qua citizens---are normative in the right sort of way. Kant's account of civil or juridical obligations fails to show that these obligations are normative as moral laws---that they are justified and reason-giving in virtue of their connection to our political consciousness. ;In chapters four through six I present a fully developed account of how political constructivism uses the features of practical reason to evaluate and assemble our ordinary political consciousness---fundamental ideas of free and open society---into a conception of justice, and the normativity of civil obligations---how they are justified and in what sense they are reason-giving for persons qua citizens. ;I lay out Rawls's argument that justice as fairness is a freestanding view by working out exactly how the view is put together without appeal to any particular comprehensive doctrine. After setting out the mechanics, if you will, of political constructivism, I then present an account of the normativity of the political conception: the justification of principles of justice and the prescriptivity or reason-giving force of principles of justice. (shrink)