关于道德唤起与道德行为关系的实验研究

本文通过一个关于测验作弊的实验研究,揭示了道德唤起与道德行为之间存在的一定关系,即不同的道德唤起水平会对道德行为产生一定的影响。通过实验后的个别访谈,我们分析了道德认知、道德情感与道德唤起之间的关系。最后,我们提出了本实验研究的不足之处和可能存在的后续研究。     

The Argument from Moral Experience

It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming character to it, and that this supports a presumption in favor of objectivist theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories like Mackie’s error theory (according to which it is not). In this paper, I argue that our experience of morality does not support objectivist moral theories in this way. I begin by arguing that our moral experience does not have the uniformly objective-seeming character it is typically claimed to have. I go on to argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of fact, we would still need a reason for taking that to support theories according to which it is such a realm. I consider what I take to be the four most promising ways of attempting to supply such a reason: (A) inference to the best explanation, (B) epistemic conservatism, (C) the Principle of Credulity, and (D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I argue, the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories.

政治文明的伦理分析

政治明不是一种孤立的明,它与道德明有着十分密切的关系,它们有着共同的契合机制和互补机制;从西方政治明的发展来看,始终没有离开理性主义、制度主义、个体主义等伦理精神;政治要真正实现明,必须使政治意识要宽容、政治制度的制衡、政治行为要有序。     

青少年责任感缺失的认知维度分析——学校责任感教育合理性追问

目前对青少年社会责任感缺失原因的分析多从社会、家庭、时代等方面着手,对学校范围内进行责任感教育并无多大帮助。本文从认知维度分析了青少年责任感缺失的三种情形及其原因,并以此为基础阐明了学校范围内责任感教育的合理性,提出在学校范围内开展的应是以责任知识、责任思维和责任实践为主要内容的责任感教育。     

Moral Accountancy and Moral Worth

People do good or bad things, and get or do not get good or bad credit for their actions, depending (in part) on knowledge of their actions. I attempt to unfold some of the interconnections between these matters, and between them and the achievement of moral worth. The main conclusion is that the heights of moral worth seem to appear in the oddest places.     

Neoclassical Economics and the Last Dogma of Positivism: Is the Normative-Positive Distinction Justified?

Neoclassical economic theory in its pretensions to scientific status is founded on one of the variants of a now discredited positivism. Neoclassical economic theory claims that there are two distinct areas of economic research: positive economics and normative economics. The former is assumed to deal with the cognitive as scientific content of economics while the later focuses on welfare or equity issues. I argue that the reliance of the whole theoretical structure of economics on the normative postulate of rationality renders neoclassical economics a normative discipline. I also argue that neoclassical economics should thus be viewed as an instance of applied ethics rather than as applied mathematics, say. Finally, it is suggested that neoclassical economics, if its scientific pretensions are to be taken seriously, should be absorbed theoretically into general anthropology.     

Book Reviews

Scruton, Roger Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey
Fraser, Nancy and Bartky, Sandra Lee (eds) Revaluing French Feminisms: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency and Culture
Friedman, Marilyn What are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships and Moral Theory     

Directions in Connectionist Research: Tractable Computations Without Syntactically Structured Representations

Should connectionists abandon the quest for tractably computable cognitive transition functions while retaining syntactically structured mental representations? We argue, in opposition to Horgan, that it should not. We argue that the case against tractably computable functions, based upon the claimed isotropic and Quinean character of cognition, fails since cognition is not as isotropic and Quinean as Fodor and Horgan contend. Moreover, we illustrate how current research in both connectionism and cognitive neuroscience suggests that tractability can be preserved through division of overall computations into modular sub-processes, each of which is tractable. As to syntactically structured representations, we argue that they are unneeded for most cognitive tasks organisms confront, and that when they are needed, they may be provided by external representational media such as natural language. Moreover, we note that increasingly cognitive linguistics has become the ally of connectionism and that the research program of cognitive linguistics suggests that abilities to use natural languages may be developed without requiring syntactically structured mental representations to exist prior to natural language.     

管理科学研究与实践中的问题

科技对社会的影响日益加强的同时,人们也逐渐意识到科学的发展不能脱离人们对价值和伦理的判断。本质上,管理科学或运筹学仍然是一种人文科学。事实上,许多管理科学家都提倡伦理主义,主张把社会的和伦理的关注纳入传统的“理性”技术和管理决策。通过联合两者进行分析,可以拉近管理科学或运筹学和商业伦理的关系。     

Connectionism and the Philosophical Foundations of Cognitive Science

This is an overview of recent philosophical discussion about connectionism and the foundations of cognitive science. Connectionist modeling in cognitive science is described. Three broad conceptions of the mind are characterized, and their comparative strengths and weaknesses are discussed: (1) the classical computation conception in cognitive science; (2) a popular foundational interpretation of connectionism that John Tienson and I call "non-sentential computationalism"; and (3) an alternative interpretation of connectionism we call "dynamical cognition." Also discussed are two recent philosophical attempts to enlist connectionism in defense of eliminativism about folk psychology.