The Non-Reductionist's Troubles with Supervenience

Philosophical Studies -     

More Troubles for Epiphenomenalism

I have argued that to say qualia are epiphenomenal is to say a world without qualia would be physically identical to a world with qualia. Dan Cavedon-Taylor has offered an alternative interpretation of the commitments of qualia epiphenomenalism according to which qualia cause beliefs and those beliefs can and do cause changes to the physical world. I argue that neither of these options works for the qualia epiphenomenalist and thus that theory faces far more serious difficulties than has previously been recognized.

Troubles with Theoretical Virtues: Resisting Theoretical Utility Arguments in Metaphysics

In this paper we examine theoretical utility arguments in metaphysics. While philosophers claim a procedural continuity with science when using such arguments, we argue that examining famous instances from the history of science expose their fundamental flaws. We find that arguments from theoretical utility invoke considerations that are not truth conducive and that justifications for claims that a theory possesses theoretical virtues often assume the truth of the theory such virtues are supposed to support. We conclude that theoretical utility arguments provide no epistemic grounds for metaphysical inquiry.     

Love Troubles: Human Attachment and Biomedical Enhancements

In fascinating recent work, Julian Savulescu and his various co‐authors argue that human love is one of the things we can improve upon using biomedical enhancements. Is that so? This article first notes that Savulescu and his co‐authors mainly treat love as a means to various other goods. Love, however, is widely regarded as an intrinsic good. To investigate whether enhancements can produce the distinctive intrinsic good of love, this article does three things. Drawing on Philip Pettit's recent discussion of ‘robustly demanding goods’, it asks what exactly we intrinsically desire in seeking love; it considers four possible outcomes involving attachment‐enhancements and attachments; and it considers two different pieces of news we might receive about our lovers' attachment to us (that it is, or that it is not, sustained with the help of enhancement‐technologies). Enhancement‐sustained attachment, it is concluded, is less desirable than the intrinsic good of love.     

Gender Differences in Self-Reported Response to Troubles Talk

Tannen [(1990) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, New York: William Morrow] and others have argued that women and men differ in communication style, and particularly in the way they respond to troubles talk. However, her research on gender differences in communication style has primarily made use of qualitative analysis of naturally occurring discourse. A Communication Styles Survey was developed to assess self-reported behavioral and emotional responses in troubles talk situations. This survey was administered to a total of 384 participants, the majority of whom were Caucasian college students. Statistically significant gender differences consistent with Tannen's predictions were found but the effect sizes tended to be small. Self-reported responses to troubles talk (such as giving advice) showed consistent individual differences among persons; for example, some persons tend to report themselves as advice givers or jokers across a wide range of troubles talk situations.     

Behavior analysts and cultural analysis: Troubles and issues

THREE STRATEGIC SUGGESTIONS ARE OFFERED TO BEHAVIOR ANALYSTS WHO ARE CONCERNED WITH EXTENDING THE INTERESTS OF OUR DISCIPLINE INTO DOMAINS TRADITIONALLY ASSIGNED TO THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: (1) to expand our world-view perspectives beyond the boundaries commonly accepted by psychologists in general; (2) to build a cultural analytic framework upon the foundations we have developed for the study of individuals; and (3) to study the works of those social scientists whose views are generally compatible with, and complementary to, our own. Sociologist C. Wright Mills' distinction between troubles and issues and anthropologist Marvin Harris's principles of cultural materialism are related to topics raised by these three strategies. The pervasiveness of the "psychocentric" world view within psychology and the social sciences, and throughout our culture at large, is discussed from the points of view of Skinner, Mills, and Harris. It is suggested that a thorough commitment to radical behaviorism, and continuation of interaction between radical behaviorism and cultural materialism, are necessary for maintaining and extending an issues orientation within the discipline of behavior analysis and for guarding against dilutions and subversions of that orientation by "deviation-dampening" contingencies that exist in our profession and in our culture at large.     

Troubles on moral twin earth: Moral queerness revived

J. L. Mackie argued that if there were objective moral properties or facts, then the supervenience relation linking the nonmoral to the moral would be metaphysically queer. Moral realists reply that objective supervenience relations are ubiquitous according to contemporary versions of metaphysical naturalism and, hence, that there is nothing especially queer about moral supervenience. In this paper we revive Mackie's challenge to moral realism. We argue: (i) that objective supervenience relations of any kind, moral or otherwise, should be explainable rather than sui generis; (ii) that this explanatory burden can be successfully met vis-à-vis the supervenience of the mental upon the physical, and in other related cases; and (iii) that the burden cannot be met for (putative) objective moral supervenience relations.This paper is thoroughly collaborative. The order of authorship is alphabetical. During its evolution from early drafts to its present form, we have written several related papers; see Horgan and Timmons (1991 and forthcoming), and Timmons (1990).     

The Bible and Gender Troubles: American Evangelicals Debate Scripture and Submission

Abstract : This article surveys the recent debates about gender roles and submissions in American evangelical theology since the 1960's. It argues that the so‐called “complementarian” viewpoint, in which women are equal in being but submissive to men in gender roles, is not the same as the traditional Christian patriarchal viewpoint. Both biblical equality and complementarian views are thus revisionist. This article introduces the “return to the Trinity” in this debate as one of the more interesting moves in recent years, and suggests some lessons for mainline Protestants.     

Scoring Situational Judgment Tests: Once You Get the Data,Your Troubles Begin

Although situational judgment tests (SJTs) have been in use for decades, consensus has not been reached on the best way to score these assessments or others (e.g., biodata) whose items do not have a single demonstrably correct answer. The purpose of this paper is to review and to demonstrate the scoring strategies that have been described in the literature. Implementation and relative merits of these strategies are described. Then, several of these methods are applied to create 11 different keys for a video‐based SJT in order to demonstrate how to evaluate the quality of keys. Implications of scoring SJTs for theory and practice are discussed.