Counselors' Attribution of Responsibility,Etiology, and Counseling Strategy

This study surveyed 167 counselors working at university counseling centers on their etiology and responsibility attributions and models of helping. Participants responded to vignettes describing either a male or female client experiencing symptoms of either an identity or adjustment problem. Counselors endorsed all of P. Brickman et al.'s (1982) models of helping for both problem types. Predictions concerning etiology attributions were partially supported. Counselors selected attributions logically consistent with an internal cause for the identity problem. However, counselors did not make external attributions for the adjustment problem. No significant results were observed for the influence of client sex.     

Shared Reality,System Justification,and the Relational Basis of Ideological Beliefs

Although it is tempting to think that one's political convictions reflect independent and unbiased thinking, research increasingly suggests that ideologies reflect motivational processes. The present paper integrates system justification and shared reality theories to propose that ideologies may function as prepackaged units of interpretation that spread because of basic human motives to understand the world, avoid existential threat, and maintain valued interpersonal relationships. The authors review evidence suggesting that affiliative motives may influence ideological beliefs to align with the progressive or conservative views shared within a given relationship or group. At the same time, such motives may lead disproportionately to the adoption of system‐justifying worldviews. Implications for the context dependence of ideological convictions, the role that shared reality may play in group conflicts, and the relational bases of revolutionary change are discussed.     

Relational Complexity and Ethical Responsibility

Richard Miller uses the concepts of alterity and intimacy as touchstones for analyzing neglected aspects of our interpersonal and social relationships. He argues that, as persons in relation, we oscillate between experiences of alterity and intimacy, and it is with a greater awareness of this oscillation that we do best to consider our ethical responsibilities. This paper affirms the value of thinking about—and potentially reimagining—how we conceive and relate to various others. It also makes explicit that, as persons, each of us is separate, not only from some, but from all other persons, even as we are also one with them. Moreover, each of us is different from all other persons, even as we are also like them. The aspects of persons and relationships on which we focus, in a given situation, matter because they partly determine the choices that we make in another’s regard.     

Justification Incorporated: a Discursive Approach to Corporate Responsibility

Contrasting two standard models of corporate responsibility—the so-called “collectivist” and “individualist” model—this essay proposes a third option, namely, a discursive conception of responsibility and examines whether and how this conception can be applied to the corporate level. It does so by taking a careful look at one of the preconditions of individual discursive responsibility, i.e. discursive practical reason, and discussing how corporate agents can meet this precondition. Building on this new concept, the essay also offers a novel approach to justifying corporate responsibility by referring to an argument advanced by Rainer Forst stating that a fundamental human right to justification is the normative core of any kind of responsibility and combining it, in a second step, with an argument recently proposed by Philip Pettit and Christian List showing the impossibility of forming consistent group attitudes and beliefs as a function of the attitudes and beliefs of individual group members. Finally, this essay outlines certain preliminary conclusions about the incorporation of responsibility in a corporate context.     

Perpetrators' Freedom of Choice as a Determinant of Responsibility Attribution

Abstract

In the present study, a swindler had high versus low freedom of choice while deciding to commit a crime. He actually swindled Polish university students (involved observers) out of a large versus a small amount of money (high vs. low loss). Other students (noninvolved observers) were informed about the swindler's action. All students suggested the punishment that they believed the swindler deserved (the punishments chosen were used as an index of responsibility attribution). Involved students assigned more severe punishments than noninvolved students did. In the high-loss condition, involved observers were more punitive than they were in the low-loss condition. The judgments of the swindler's victims were determined by the magnitude of their loss; they ignored information about the swindler's freedom of choice. In contrast, the responsibility attributed by the noninvolved observers was influenced by the swindler's freedom of choice, but only in the low-loss condition. Noninvolved observers informed that the swindler had high freedom of choice were insensitive to information about the magnitude of the consequences for the victim.     

Artificial Intelligence, Religion, and Community Concern

Future developments in artificial intelligence (AI) will likely allow for a greater degree of human-machine convergence, with machines becoming more humanlike and intelligent machinery becoming more integrated into human brain function. This will pose many ethical challenges, and the necessity for a moral framework for evaluating these challenges will grow. This paper argues that community concern constitutes a central factor in both the evolution of religion and the human brain, and as such it should be used as the organizing principle for moral evaluations of AI technologies.     

Imputation as Attribution: Union with Christ, Reification and Justification as Declarative Word

Calvin's integration of the christological features of the eucharistic controversy with soteriological questions in his refutation of Andreas Osiander marks a critical development in Reformed theology. In this article, that development is extended further in reconsideration of the nature of imputation as a linguistic action. It is argued that imputation is a soteriological corollary of the christological idea of attribution. Imputation thus conceived clarifies not only how it is located within the doctrine of union with Christ, but how that union and imputation provide clarity in ongoing discussions about reification of sin and righteousness as well as the nature of justification as a declarative word.     

逻辑与人工智能

20世纪中期以来,计算机科学以撼世惊人的速度不断向前发展.作为其核心分支的人工智能研究亦取得了一次又一次的突破,并且以其不断逼近与挑战人类智能的姿态而引人注目.在人工智能成就的背后,逻辑学是促其前行的最主要动力引擎之一.逻辑为人工智能提供了根本性的观点与方法,并促成了人工智能研究中最主要派别--逻辑主义AI.而有着漫长学科发展史的逻辑学本身也在与人工智能的结姻过程中获得了自数学公理化、形式化运动以来的又一次全新发展契机.有论者认为"人工智能将是21世纪逻辑学发展的主要动力源泉,并且在很大程度上将决定21世纪逻辑学的面貌".[1]     

大数据、人工智能和造世伦理

大数据和人工智能的发展,使人类活动回归认识和实践一体化。从上帝之眼到上帝之手,人类的伦理地位根本改变。世界的自然进化不存在伦理问题,而世界的人为创构则使伦理问题日益具有整体性,从而将伦理研究提升到更高的整体层次。适应世界必须遵循的伦理是"适世伦理",创构世界所必须遵循的则是"造世伦理"。从"适世伦理"到"造世伦理",意味着个体伦理和集体伦理的和解;意味着类伦理的凸显。大数据具有重要造世伦理意蕴,一方面,大数据的规模整全性、结构开放性、实时流动性和价值生产性,提供了一个全新的伦理基础;另一方面,其统计性又使大数据应用具有巨大伦理风险。而人工智能则使人类面临伦理关系的革命性变革。造世伦理的基本问题是造世的在先预设伦理,它不仅关乎人类进化方向的选择,而且日益深入地涉及类如是否应当让超级智能做出在先预设等复杂伦理问题。造世伦理具有不同的性质和特点,其中最基本的,就是造世伦理的整体性、类特性和共同性。     

人际责任归因与助人意愿的关系

人际责任归因研究是归因研究与责任推断相结合的一个新领域,它将归因理论应用于对他人失败行为的责任分析之中,为行为责任的推断提供了一个崭新的视角。本研究结合助人行为探讨人际责任归因与助人意愿之间的内在联系,204名教育硕士生和大学生被试参与了此项研究,并通过EQS建立了有关归因的控制性、情感反应、责任推断以及助人行为之间关系的结构方程模型。研究结果支持Weiner的人际责任归因理论假设,并且表明在归因与助人意愿关系模型中责任推断与情感反应是双向的而非单向的关系。     

一般人工智能概述(英文)

AGI是为解决传统人工智能存在的问题而产生的,更注重通用智能的基础问题和人工实现,与认知科学、心灵哲学也密切相关。本文通过介绍AGI的发展历史、AGI的定义及其与传统AI的关系以及一些有代表性的AGI方案等对AGI进行介绍。     

Artificial Intelligence and Medical Humanities

The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare has led to debates about the role of human clinicians in the increasingly technological contexts of medicine. Some researchers have argued that AI will augment the capacities of physicians and increase their availability to provide empathy and other uniquely human forms of care to their patients. The human vulnerabilities experienced in the healthcare context raise the stakes of new technologies such as AI, and the human dimensions of AI in healthcare have particular significance for research in the humanities. This article explains four key areas of concern relating to AI and the role that medical/health humanities research can play in addressing them: definition and regulation of “medical” versus “health” data and apps; social determinants of health; narrative medicine; and technological mediation of care. Issues include data privacy and trust, flawed datasets and algorithmic bias, racial discrimination, and the rhetoric of humanism and disability. Through a discussion of potential humanities contributions to these emerging intersections with AI, this article will suggest future scholarly directions for the field.

     

Chains of Command: Responsibility Attribution in Hierarchies1

Obedience to authority involves a chain of causation whereby one party causes another to act. Theoretical problems of responsibility in chains of command were addressed and responsibility within interpersonal causal chains was investigated among a quota sample of the Boston SMSA (N= 391). Findings replicated prior investigations of attitudes about the My Lai massacre and Calley trial. Most respondents approached the incident in terms of the assertion versus denial of responsibility—assertion on the basis of personal causation, versus denial the basis of superior orders. Judgments of responsibility for other bureaucratic crimes of obedience (Watergate burglary and cover-up) or for wrongdoing in professional settings differed sharply, but tendencies to assign or reject assignment of responsibility to subordinates were consistently observable across incidents. Demographic cleavages supported earlier conclusions: More educated respondents and religious “others” (Jewish, other groups, and none) were more likely to assert individual responsibility, but education's effects were stronger for non-Catholics. The paper concludes by raising the possibility of training individuals to assert individual responsibility in the face of illegal or immoral commands from authority.