Why Speciesism is Wrong: A Response to Kagan

In Animal Liberation I argued that we commonly ignore or discount the interests of sentient members of other species merely because they are not human, and that this bias in favour of members of our own species is, in important respects, parallel to the biases that lie behind racism and sexism. Shelly Kagan, in ‘What's Wrong With Speciesism’ misconstrues this argument, as well as the principle of equal consideration of interests, which I offer as an alternative to speciesism. Kagan also offers, as an alternative explanation of, and possible justification for, our discounting the interests of nonhuman animals, the suggestion that your interests count more if you are a member of a species whose typical adult members are persons. Although this view is not a form of speciesism, Kagan seems not to be aware of the fact that it is a view commonly defended by advocates of natural law ethics, on which there is already an extensive critical literature.     

Immoral behaviour following brain damage: A review

Despite the apparent sociability of human kind, immoral behaviour is ever present in society. The term ‘immoral behaviour’ represents a complex array of conduct, ranging from insensitivity to topics of conversation through to violent assault and murder. To better understand the neuroscience of immoral behaviour, this review investigates two clinical populations that commonly present with changes in moral behaviour – behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia and acquired brain injuries. Based on evidence from these groups, it is argued that rather than a single underlying cause, immoral behaviour can result from three distinct types of cognitive failure: (1) problems understanding others; (2) difficulties controlling behaviour; or (3) deficits in the capacity to make appropriate emotional contributions. Each of these failures is associated with damage to different brain regions. A more nuanced approach to the neuroscience of immoral behaviour has important implications for our understanding of immoral behaviour in a wide range of clinical groups, as well as human society more broadly.     

From Hiroshima to the Present

After a childhood spent playing battle games, I went into the Navy during the war, and stayed in for 6 years, but when I visited Hiroshima I realized that I must study why people wanted to kill each other. I did a psychology degree and Ph.D., and then trained at the Institute, meanwhile working at the Cassel Hospital under the inspiration of Tom Main.     

Why Toleration Is Not the Appropriate Response to Dissenting Minorities' Claims

For many liberal democrats toleration has become a sort of pet‐concept, to which appeal is made in the face of a myriad issues related to the treatment of minorities. Against the inflationary use of toleration, whether understood positively as recognition or negatively as forbearance, I argue that toleration may not provide the conceptual and normative tools to understand and address the claims for accommodation raised by at least one kind of significant minority: democratic dissenting minorities. These are individuals, or aggregates of them, who oppose, on principled grounds, the outcomes of the majoritarian decision‐making process. I argue that democratic dissenting minorities' claims are better understood as calls for respect for a person's capacity for self‐legislation. I view respect as the cornerstone of justice in a liberal democracy: all norms resulting in a constraint on a person's conduct should be appropriately justified to her. I argue that the reconciliation of democratic dissenting minorities' claims requires an enhancement of the justificatory strategies of democratic decisions by enhancing in turn citizens' rights to political participation. This should be done both during decision making and after a provision is enacted by also securing space for contestation through such forms of illegal protest as civil disobedience and conscientious objection.     

Why People Turn to Religion: A Motivational Analysis

The Reiss Profile of Fundamental Goals and Motivational Sensitivities, a standardized psychological measure that assesses 15 fundamental desires, was administered to college students (n= 214) and to mental retardation service providers (n = 344), total N = 558, who rated themselves as “very,”“somewhat,” and “not” religious. How religious a person rated himself, call dereligiosity, was associated with high desire scores for honor and family, and with low desire scores for vengeanceand independence. The investigation provided evidence that the desire for dependence on God is unrelated to any desire for psychological weakness (submission to another person or political leader.)     

What Was Not Discussed: Reply to Comments

Here I respond to comments and questions raised in commentary papers (Castro and Lafuente, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 42, 2007; Charles, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 42, 2007; Woodward and Hetley, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 42, 2007) and address three issues not discussed on my previous paper: (1) the historiography used in the history of Japanese psychology, (2) the first generation of Japanese women psychologists to flesh out the history of psychology in Japan, and (3) how applied psychology and psychical research existed in the early phase of psychology in Japan. Consequently, this paper, together with the previous one, provides a broader picture of the development of psychology in Japan.

Applying Philosophy: A Response to O'Neill

abstract   I consider the putative originality of applied philosophy and seek to defend a version of it often called 'bottom up'. I review ways in which imagined cases may cause us to reconsider our normative commitments, and endorse a general attentiveness to the matter of how the world is and how it might reasonably be imagined. This is important if practical philosophers want to form the correct normative judgements, to be able to recognize the sui generis character of some moral theorising in particular domains, practically to enact their considered judgments, and properly to acknowledge how the real world, in the form of institutions, practices and a cultural framework, constrains, or facilitates, practical enactment. Throughout I illustrate my abstract claims by reference to the moral judgement and legal regulation of sexual behaviour .