Representations and Cognitive Explanations: Assessing the Dynamicist's Challenge in Cognitive Science

Advocates of dynamical systems theory (DST) sometimes employ revolutionary rhetoric. In an attempt to clarify how DST models differ from others in cognitive science, I focus on two issues raised by DST: the role for representations in mental models and the conception of explanation invoked. Two features of representations are their role in standing-in for features external to the system and their format. DST advocates sometimes claim to have repudiated the need for stand-ins in DST models, but I argue that they are mistaken. Nonetheless, DST does offer new ideas as to the format of representations employed in cognitive systems. With respect to explanation, I argue that some DST models are better seen as conforming to the covering-law conception of explanation than to the mechanistic conception of explanation implicit in most cognitive science research. But even here, I argue, DST models are a valuable complement to more mechanistic cognitive explanations.     

Confucianism,Rule‐Consequentialism,and the Demands of Filial Obligations

Why should I take care of my aging parents? How far will morality require me to sacrifice for this cause? I will study these questions from the perspectives of Confucianism and rule‐consequentialism. Confucians believe that the continuity of families and the interactions between members of different generations can enhance the integrity of society in the long run. However, since Confucianism may impose extreme demands on its followers, this theory may be problematic. In this paper, I argue that despite its demands, the Confucian doctrines are defensible and are worth upholding. To explain my view, I draw upon rule‐consequentialism and explain how the rule‐consequentialist analysis complements and enhances the Confucian claims. I believe that the consequentialist conception of Confucianism can provide a useful resource for responding to the moral challenge of population aging in the current state of the world.     

Doxastic planning and epistemic internalism

In the following I discuss the debate between epistemological internalists and externalists from an unfamiliar meta-epistemological perspective. In doing so, I focus on the question of whether rationality is best captured in externalist or internalist terms. Using a conception of epistemic judgments as “doxastic plans,” I characterize one important subspecies of judgments about epistemic rationality—focusing on the distinctive rational/functional role these judgments play in regulating how we form beliefs. Then I show why any judgment that plays this role should be expected to behave the manner internalists predict. In this way, I argue, we can explain why our basic toolbox for epistemic evaluation includes an internalist conception of rationality.     

On the Special Logic Thesis in Chinese Philosophy

I address the problem of whether philosophy can be international by its claim to represent rationality, hence universality. I argue in favor of this claim by focusing on the special logic thesis in Chinese philosophy. This thesis holds that a different type of logic must be used when studying the Chinese texts. I argue at length against the special logic thesis by examining the problem of human nature in the Confucian philosophers Mencius, Hsün Tzu and Kao Tzu. I show how their arguments can be reconstructed as inductive analogical arguments and as deductive argument. I then broaden the notion of the logic of argumentation into a discussion of metaphysical anti-essentialism and underdetermination in order to resolve the problem of human nature and also to show how the same types of logical analysis (more generally construed) can be applied to the arguments from these Confucian philosophers. Under my treatment, Kao Tzu, somewhat surprisingly, turns out to provide the most insight.     

Are early confucians consequentialists?

Various attempts have been made to interpret Confucian ethics in the framework of consequentialist ethics. Such interpretations either treat Mencius theory of moral choice as a kind of act-utilitarianism or attribute to Mencius a rather sophisticated consequentialist moral view. In this paper I challenge such interpretations and try to clarify the nature of the Confucian conception of the good. In order to show that the Confucian good is teleological but non-consequentialist, I will discuss different ways (especially those of John Rawls and Alasdair MacIntyre) of classifying ethical theories and show their bearing on my interpretation of Confucian ethics. I will then discuss the consequentialist (utilitarian) understanding of early Confucians, arguing that without a proper understanding of the overall character of Confucian ethics and its primary concern, no interpretation of the Confucian conception of the good may claim to be adequate.     

In the World of Persons: The Personhood Debate in the Analects and Zhuangzi

This article is an examination of a debate between Confucians and Zhuangists surrounding the notion of moral personhood as understood in the early Confucian tradition. This debate takes place across texts??most importantly in the Confucian challenge of Analects 18.5-7 and the Zhuangist response of the Renjianshi chapter of the Zhuangzi. In better understanding the disagreement between these two schools, we can come to a clearer picture of the notion of personhood at stake. The Zhuangist reaction to the Confucian position on personhood helps to demonstrate that the Confucians held a conception of the person as communally constructed. Such a view, I argue, can be of great use in contemporary debates surrounding agency, moral responsibility, and moral development. After offering an outline of the Confucian position, I consider various Zhuangist objections both in the Analects and Renjianshi chapter, before considering what I take to be convincing Confucian responses to the Zhuangist objections.     

The Ghostly Other: Understanding Racism from Confucian and Enlightenment Models of Subjectivity

The overwhelming motif of nineteenth century anti-Semitic discourse is the metaphor of the Jew as a ghost. In all cultures, the ghost represents the antithesis of what is categorically human: it represents the other par excellence. By using the heuristic of the ghost to interpret how Enlightenment discourse has dealt with the other, this article will argue that the Enlightenment model of the self and its relation to others was a contributing factor to Modern Racism. Enlightenment discourse on subjectivity finds its counterpart in Confucian notions of subjectivity. By looking at how ghosts are understood within Confucian discourse and how they are evoked in popular literature, I argue that Confucian philosophy’s model of subjectivity contributed to the success of the Chinese empire’s assimilation project.     

Confucian Moral Cultivation,Longevity, and Public Policy

By investigating the link between the Confucian ideal of longevity and moral cultivation, I argue that Confucian moral cultivation is founded on the ideal of harmony, and, in this connection, it promotes a holistic, healthy life, of which longevity is an important component. My argument is internal to Confucianism, in the sense that it aims to show these concepts are coherently constructed within the Confucian philosophical framework; I do not go beyond the Confucian framework to prove its validity. Finally, I show that if these Confucian beliefs are true, they have serious implications for public policy-making in contemporary societies.     

Confucian love and global ethics: how the cheng brothers would help respond to christian criticisms

There is an increasing awareness that we are living in a global village, which demands a global ethics. In this article, I shall explore what contributions Confucianism, particularly its conception of love, can make. It has often been claimed that Confucian love is love with distinction, as a natural feeling, and as merely human love and so it is inferior to the Christian love, which is universal, commanded, and based on divine love. Drawing on the resources of the Cheng brothers’ neo-Confucianism, I shall explore how Confucianism can make creative responses to such criticisms and thus make a unique Confucian contribution to the emerging global ethics.     

Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge

I argue that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge, in a sense to be specified and defended. I first consider some existing proposals for construing collective knowledge and argue that they are unsatisfactory, at least for scientific knowledge as we encounter it in actual scientific practice. Then I introduce an alternative conception of collective knowledge, on which knowledge is collective if there is a strong form of mutual epistemic dependence among scientists, which makes it so that satisfaction of the justification condition on knowledge ineliminably requires a collective. Next, I show how features of contemporary science support the conclusion that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge in this sense. Finally, I consider implications of my proposal and defend it against objections.     

Why Truthmaking Is Not a Case of Grounding

Truthmaker theorists often express their core commitment by saying that truth is grounded in being, and grounding theorists often take truthmaking to be a paradigm case of grounding. But I will argue that truthmaking is not a case of grounding. What is crucial for understanding truthmaking is not grounding but rather meaning (in a broad sense including reference). Truth is still constrained by how things are, so even if (so-called) truthmakers don't play a role in grounding truths, the methodological program of truthmaker theory survives. Here I lay out my understanding of truth and truthmaking, and distinguish two conceptions of grounding. I argue that truthmaking is not plausibly seen as a case of grounding on either conception. I argue further that treating truthmaking as grounding threatens to violate a plausible irreflexivity principle, and makes trouble for the view that grounding is transitive. I then suggest that there is no genuine relation of truthmaking (which there would have to be if it were a true case of grounding). Finally, I show how the core insights of truthmaker theory are preserved by the understanding of truthmaking that I favor.     

Rousseau on Sex-Roles,Education and Happiness

Over the last decade, philosophers of education have begun taking a renewed interest in Rousseau’s educational thought. This is a welcome development as his ideas are rich with educational insights. His philosophy is not without its flaws, however. One significant flaw is his educational project for females, which is sexist in the highest degree. Rousseau argues that females should be taught to “please men…and make [men’s] lives agreeable and sweet.” The question becomes how could Rousseau make such strident claims, especially in light of his far more insightful ideas concerning the education of males. This paper attempts to make sense of Rousseau’s ideas on the education of females. While I maintain that Rousseau’s project for Sophie ought to be rejected, I argue that we should try to understand how this otherwise insightful thinker could make such surprising claims. Is it a bizarre inconsistency in his philosophical reasoning or an expression of his unabashed misogyny, as so many have claimed? I argue that it is neither. Rather, it is a product of his conception of human happiness and his belief in the irreducible role human sexual relations has in achieving and prolonging that happiness. For Rousseau, sex, love and happiness are inextricably connected, and he believes that men and women will be happiest when they inhabit certain sex roles—not because sex roles are valuable in themselves, but because only through them can either men or women hope to be happy.     

Behavior systems and reinforcement: an integrative approach.

Most traditional conceptions of reinforcement are based on a simple causal model in which responding is strengthened by the presentation of a reinforcer. I argue that reinforcement is better viewed as the outcome of constraint of a functioning causal system comprised of multiple interrelated causal sequences, complex linkages between causes and effects, and a set of initial conditions. Using a simplified system conception of the reinforcement situation, I review the similarities and drawbacks of traditional reinforcement models and analyze the recent contributions of cognitive, regulatory, and ecological approaches. Finally, I show how the concept of behavior systems can begin to incorporate both traditional and recent conceptions of reinforcement in an integrative approach.     

Confucianism,Perfectionism, and Liberal Society

Confucian scholars should satisfy two conditions insofar as they think their theories enable Confucianism to make contributions to liberal politics and social policy. The liberal accommodation condition stipulates that the theory in question should accommodate as many reasonable conceptions of the good and religious doctrines as possible while the intelligibility condition stipulates that the theory must have a recognizable Confucian character. By and large, Joseph Chan’s Confucian perfectionism is able to satisfy the above two conditions. However, contrary to Chan and many other Confucian scholars, I argue that any active promotion of Confucianism will violate the liberal accommodation condition. I propose the “wide view of moderate perfectionism,” which enables Confucianism to shed light on a wide range of political and social issues without promoting Confucianism actively. Thus, I present a new approach to the long-standing question of how Confucianism may improve political and social development in a liberal society.     

Confucianism and the Lack of the Development of the Self Among Korean American Women

In this essay, I will examine how the societal attribution of women's subordinate role in society influences their psychological health and results in the undesirable effect of broken relationships. I will argue that (1) Confucianism has been a major influence in creating a subordinate role for women in Korea; (2) the societal expectation of women's subordinate role contributes to the arrest in the development of the self in women; and (3) the lack of the development of the self among women brings further broken relationships by causing in women grandiosity, low self-esteem, and a pervasive sense of shame.     

Good lives and the rehabilitation of offenders: Promises and problems

In this paper, I argue that every rehabilitation program presupposes conceptions of possible good lives for offenders and, associated with this, an understanding of the necessary internal and external conditions for living such lives. I first clarify the notion of good lives and outline its necessary features. Second, I establish the conclusion that all offender programs presuppose a conception of good lives. In order to make the argument a little more concrete, I demonstrate how a state-of-the-art treatment program for sex offenders and research on the process of offender change presuppose such a conception and expose the problems evident in the way they engage with this dimension of rehabilitation. Third, I argue that it is necessary for individuals working to rehabilitate offenders to explicitly construct conceptions of good lives for different offenders and to use these conceptions to shape the behavior change process.     

Mental Causation: Unnaturalized but not Unnatural

The central problem for a realist about mental causation is to show that mental causation is compatible with the causal completeness of physical systems. This problem has seemed intractable in large part because of a widely held view that any sort of systematic overdetermination of events by their causes is unacceptable. I account for the popularity of this view, but argue that we ought to reject it. In doing so. I show how we thereby undermine the idea that mental causes must be naturalizable in order to be legitimate. Thus I argue that a non-naturalist conception of mental causation is compatible with a plausible kind of physicalism.     

Character-Principlism and the Particularity Objection

This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle-based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character-principlism .
I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and then contrast two views – both of which insist on the importance of attentiveness to particularity – about the relative normative status of principles and particular cases. I present some reasons for believing that we need a more normatively robust conception of the role of moral principles than the particularists provide. In the main portion of the paper, I discuss how character-principlism sees principles functioning in our lives and the lives we lead with others. I contrast this with some other accounts of desirable character that particularists can embrace, and argue that these are seriously flawed because, unlike character-principlism, they cannot satisfactorily explain how a person could possess the constancy of character that moral integrity requires.     

The value of dignity in and for bioethics: rethinking the terms of the debate

The discussion of the nature and value of dignity in and for bioethics concerns not only the importance of the concept but also the aims of bioethics itself. Here, I challenge the claim that the concept of dignity is useless by challenging the implicit conception of usefulness involved. I argue that the conception of usefulness that both opponents and proponents of dignity in bioethics adopt is rooted in a narrow understanding of the role of normative theory in practical ethical thinking. I then offer an alternate understanding of the nature and value of dignity. I begin by recognizing that claims that one’s dignity has been violated point to an important difference between “respect for autonomy” and “respect for persons.” I then suggest three different conceptions of how dignity can be normatively guiding for bioethics, and conclude that, ultimately, understanding dignity as the cornerstone of a reflective perspective that frames moral reflection and deliberation is valuable for doing bioethics well.     

Bioethics' gender

I argue that the field of bioethics is gendered feminine, but that the methods it uses to resist this gender identity pose real harm to actual women. Starting with an explanation of what I take 'gender' to be, I enumerate four drawbacks to being gendered feminine. I then argue that bioethics suffers from three of the same four drawbacks. I show how the field escapes the fourth disadvantage by adopting a masculine persona that inflicts damage on women, and conclude by urging bioethicists to reflect on their complicity in abusive power systems such as gender, race and class.