In Defence Of Weak Psychological Egoism

Weak psychological egoism is the doctrine that anything an agent does intentionally, that agent does at least expecting thereby to realize one of her self-regarding ends. (Strong psychological egoism, by contrast, is the doctrine that agents act always intending thereby to realize a self-regarding end.) Though weak psychological egoism is a doctrine ultimately answerable to empirical evidence, we presently have excellent a priori reasons for accepting it and attempting to construct psychological theories that include it as an organizing principle. These reasons have mainly to do with the idea that to understand the motivation behind an action, we need to understand the force of the consideration that motivates the agent, and the way to do this is to find a self-regarding end associated in the agent's mind with acting on that consideration.     

Egoism and Emotion

Recently, the idea that human beings may be totally egoistic has resurfaced in philosophical and psychological discussions. But many of the arguments for that conclusion are conceptually flawed. Psychologists are making a conceptual error when they think of the desire to avoid guilt as egoistic; and the same is true of the common view that the desire to avoid others’ disapproval is also egoistic. Sober and Wilson argue against this latter idea on the grounds that such a desire is relational, but a deeper reason stems from the fact that it places such intrinsic importance on other human beings. And other basic human desires, like the desire for love, the desire for revenge, the impulse to imitate others, and the desire to belong, also treat others as important and on those grounds cannot count as egoistic. Another line of recent argument for egoism stems from the work of Robert Cialdini et al., and claims that the way we identify and feel one with those other people we empathize with and seek to help shows us to be thinking of those others as part of or identical with ourselves. This is supposed to show that our putative altruism is basically self-centered and egoistic, but Cialdini arguably misinterprets what we mean when we speak of feeling one with someone else, and the phenomena he mentions don’t therefore stand in favor of psychological egoism. More generally, many of the positive and negative emotions we feel toward others are best interpreted as non-egoistic, and there is no reason at this point to doubt that humans are capable of altruistic motivation.     

Universal Grammar as a Theory of Notation

What is common to all languages is notation, so Universal Grammar can be understood as a system of notational types. Given that infants acquire language, it can be assumed to arise from some a priori mental structure. Viewing language as having the two layers of calculus and protocol, we can set aside the communicative habits of speakers. Accordingly, an analysis of notation results in the three types of Identifier, Modifier and Connective. Modifiers are further interpreted as Quantifiers and Qualifiers. The resulting four notational types constitute the categories of Universal Grammar. Its ontology is argued to consist in the underlying cognitive schema of Essence, Quantity, Quality and Relation. The four categories of Universal Grammar are structured as polysemous fields and are each constituted as a radial network centred on some root concept which, however, need not be lexicalized. The branches spread out along troponymic vectors and together map out all possible lexemes. The notational typology of Universal Grammar is applied in a linguistic analysis of the ‘parts of speech’ using the English language. The analysis constitutes a ‘proof of concept’ in (1) showing how the schema of Universal Grammar is capable of classifying the so-called ‘parts of speech’, (2) presenting a coherent analysis of the verb, and (3) showing how the underlying cognitive schema allows for a sub-classification of the auxiliaries.     

The Double Bind as a Universal Pathogenic Situation

In this report we have tried to propose specific models for the genesis of three types of neurosis (i.e., hysteric, phobic, and obsessive-compulsive). We believe that this approach, based on a conceptual reconstruction of the specific learning contexts and experiences of an individual, is applicable to the study of the other functional disturbances as well. A central position is assigned in this to the ubiquity of double-bind phenomena which are assumed to be of greater importance than previously believed.     

Compression as a Universal Principle of Animal Behavior

A key aim in biology and psychology is to identify fundamental principles underpinning the behavior of animals, including humans. Analyses of human language and the behavior of a range of non‐human animal species have provided evidence for a common pattern underlying diverse behavioral phenomena: Words follow Zipf's law of brevity (the tendency of more frequently used words to be shorter), and conformity to this general pattern has been seen in the behavior of a number of other animals. It has been argued that the presence of this law is a sign of efficient coding in the information theoretic sense. However, no strong direct connection has been demonstrated between the law and compression, the information theoretic principle of minimizing the expected length of a code. Here, we show that minimizing the expected code length implies that the length of a word cannot increase as its frequency increases. Furthermore, we show that the mean code length or duration is significantly small in human language, and also in the behavior of other species in all cases where agreement with the law of brevity has been found. We argue that compression is a general principle of animal behavior that reflects selection for efficiency of coding.     

Bonhoeffer and Universal Health Care as a Human Right

Bonhoeffer gave a theocentric basis for human rights, as God is the ground of ethics. In our earthly world, the “ultimate” must be prepared by what is “penultimate.” That includes humanity’s natural life and bodily wholeness, leading to human duties crafted by human reason. Nowadays, biblical texts should not be used as partisan weapons attacking government provision of health care, since all Scripture (even the Law) is seen as a Christ-centered focus on human redemption. Thus, Bonhoeffer implies a right to universal health care, but leaves entirely open which practical structures may best provide it.     

Aesthetic Chills as a Universal Marker of Openness to Experience

Aesthetic chills are transient emotional responses to music or other experiences of beauty. Item 188 of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) asks respondents if they have experienced these chills, and in American samples it is one of the best definers of Openness to Experience, one of the five basic personality factors. As part of the NEO-PI-R, the item has been translated into over 40 languages, and an examination of back-translations suggests that the phenomenon can be expressed in all the languages examined. Data from the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project show that Item 188 is one of the best definers of Openness in most of the 51 cultures examined. Aesthetic chills appear to be a universal emotional experience, although the functions they serve and the mechanisms that account for them remain to be discovered.

Introduction: Egoism,Altruism and Impartiality

The distinction between egoistic and altruistic motivation is firmly embedded in contemporary moral discourse, but harks back too to early modern attempts to found morality on an egoistic basis. Rejecting that latter premise means accepting that others’ interests have intrinsic value, but it remains far from clear what altruism demands of us and what its relationship is with the rest of morality. While informing our duties, altruism seems also to urge us to transcend them and embrace the other-regarding values and virtues constitutive of a good life. This rather wide conception of morality may strike us today as too demanding. At the same time, however, currently popular impartialist accounts of morality can disrupt much everyday altruism in their insistence that each person’s interests are weighed precisely equally. Having sketched this problematic of altruism, the second half of this Introduction outlines the arguments of the four papers and review essay in this collection, each of which, in a different way, negotiates the difficult relationships between egoism, altruism, morality and impartiality. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Towards a Universal Civilization

An address given on 2 April 1997 at the Institute of Islamic Understanding, Malaysia (IKIM) on the occasion of the official visit of H.E. Prof. Dr Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Republic of Germany     

Measuring Spirituality as a Universal Human Experience: A Review of Spirituality Questionnaires

Spirituality is an important theme in health research, since a spiritual orientation can help people to cope with the consequences of a serious disease. Knowledge on the role of spirituality is, however, limited, as most research is based on measures of religiosity rather than spirituality. A questionnaire that transcends specific beliefs is a prerequisite for quantifying the importance of spirituality among people who adhere to a religion or none at all. In this review, we discuss ten questionnaires that address spirituality as a universal human experience. Questionnaires are evaluated with regard to psychometric properties, item formulation and confusion with well-being and distress. Although none of the questionnaires fulfilled all the criteria, the multidimensional Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire is promising.     

关于普遍模式的争论

自麦哲伦的环球航行（1521年）以来,普遍主义诉求与国际问题纠缠在一起,而普遍主义诉求的基础与范式曾有过三次变化。16世纪世界化的帝国西班牙和葡萄牙确立,名义是“耶稣与永恒的拯救”。19世纪英国和法国创设了殖民网络,名义是所谓文明之精髓的“进步与科学”。20世纪中叶渴望获取幸福的新愿望浮现出来,让一巴蒂斯特·萨伊用被消费商品的数目来衡量这种幸福。     

自由主义的自我观与社群主义的共同体观念

自由主义的自我观是一种原子式的个人观,这种原子式的个人先于社会结构而存在,并且社会的性质是为他们所决定的。自由主义的自我观根源于现代社会。社群主义强调个人的社会背景关联性、强调社会结构对个人的优先性,从而提出共同体的观念。而从麦金太尔等人的共同体观念来看,他们所强调的共同体都是历史性的,而不是现代的。