Through Thick and Thin: Validity and Reflective Judgment

The application of “thick” ethical concepts is best understood as a process of reflective rather than deductive judgment. Taking the form “B is as X as A,” where X is a thick ethical concept and A and B are narrative wholes unified through X (for example, “Those who hid Jews from the Nazis were as brave as Achilles”), reflective judgment opens thick ethical concepts to transformation. Though interpretive, such reflective judgment may still be able to provide validity without recourse to “thin,” purportedly context‐neutral terms.     

Belief through Thick and Thin

We distinguish between two categories of belief—thin belief and thick belief—and provide evidence that they approximate genuinely distinct categories within folk psychology. We use the distinction to make informative predictions about how laypeople view the relationship between knowledge and belief. More specifically, we show that if the distinction is genuine, then we can make sense of otherwise extremely puzzling recent experimental findings on the entailment thesis (i.e. the widely held philosophical thesis that knowledge entails belief). We also suggest that the distinction can be applied to debates in the philosophy of mind and metaethics.     

Psychological Defense Mechanisms: A New Perspective

Approaching psychological defense mechanisms from the perspective of an evolved strategy, it is proposed that there are two basic templates-dissociation and cognitive distortions. Frequently conceived of as pathological, these psychological phenomena actually constitute overlapping spectrums with milder manifestations being common and highly functional, and more severe variants less common and typically dysfunctional. Dissociation provides the capacity to adaptively detach from disturbing emotional states, and cognitive distortions place a positive ego-enhancing spin on experience. Most of the classical defense mechanisms described in the psychoanalytic literature represent a form of cognitive distortion with some containing strong elements of dissociation.     

Overlapping Consensus Thin and Thick: John Rawls and Simone Weil

John Rawls and Simone Weil presented two distinct conceptions of political justice, aimed at articulating a common ethos in an inherently heterogeneous society. The terms of the former, chiefly concerned with the distribution of primary goods, underwrite much of today's Western democracies political liberalism. The terms of the latter, chiefly concerned with the way interaction is organised in social activities in view of the body and soul's balancing pairs of needs, are less well known. We explain the sense in which the overlapping consensus in Weil's notion of political justice is “thicker”, and may thus deserve more attention – alongside that of Rawls – for substantiating a democratic ethos within political liberalism.     

道德矛盾心理——一种相对主义的解读

道德矛盾心理是指面对不同的道德传统,我们感觉到这些道德传统和自己传统的相似性,而其差异性也会让我们对自己的道德传统产生怀疑或者动摇。关于这个问题的讨论从以下几个方面展开:解释道德矛盾心理;讨论几种消解道德矛盾心理的不成功的解决方案;呈现道德相对主义对道德矛盾心理的解释;讨论道德多元论对道德矛盾心理的解释;道德矛盾心理并不支持客观多元主义;自然的或者客观的道德并不是道德矛盾心理产生的必要条件,也不是充分条件。     

Thick,Thin, and Becoming a Virtuous Arguer

A virtue account is focused on the character of those who argue. It is frequently assumed, however, that virtues are not action guiding, since they describe how to be and so fail to give us specific actions to take in a sticky situation. In terms of argumentation, we might say that being a charitable arguer is virtuous, but knowing so provides no details about how to argue successfully. To close this gap, I develop a parallel with the thick-thin distinction from ethics and use Hursthouse’s notion of “v-rules”. I also draw heavily from the work in argumentation by Daniel Cohen to develop Wayne Brockriede’s notion of arguing lovingly. But “argue lovingly” has a delicious ambiguity. For Brockriede it describes how we engage with others arguers. It can also mean, however, a loving attachment to knowledge, understanding, and truth. Applying the thick-thin distinction to argumentation in general and loving argumentation in particular shows that a virtue theoretic approach to argumentation is valuable for two reasons: it can provide one articulation of what it means to be a virtuous arguer and provide some insights into how to become one.     

Proximal and Distal Defense: A New Perspective on Unconscious Motivation

Death-related thoughts produce different effects on thought and behavior when they are in current focal attention and when they are on the fringes of consciousness. When such thoughts are conscious, people attempt to either remove them from consciousness or push death into the distant future by distorting their beliefs to logically imply that they have many remaining years to live. When such thoughts are highly accessible but outside current focal attention, people increase efforts to view themselves as persons of value living in a meaningful universe. In this way, awareness of the inevitability of death produces diverse effects on human thought and behavior that bear little obvious resemblance to the problem of death.     

文化神经科学：一个新兴的跨学科领域

文化神经科学是一个将文化,心理和大脑整合起来的新兴的跨学科领域。本文简要地介绍了从2000年到2010年在文化神经科学领域内的各种观点,同时回顾了该领域里一些典型的功能性磁共振（fMRI）的研究成果。文章认为,文化神经科学可为人类心理的研究提供一个全新的,整合性的理论框架,而且,它还为中国心理学家提供了机遇：使用中国被试开展文化神经科学研究去取得世界一流的成果。     

Ruth Macklin,Against Relativism: Cultural Diversity and the Search for Ethical Universal in Medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Ruth Macklin,Against Relativism: Cultural Diversity and the Search for Ethical Universal in Medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -