"Little rapes," specious claims, and moral hubris: a reply to Korn, Huelsman, Reed, and Aiello

Because they failed to include our informed consent, guided imagery scenarios, and debriefing, the relevance of Koren, Huelsman, Reed, and Aiello's (1992) data remains unknown. The design of their Study 1 did not test the greater objectivity of role taking over involved participation. The design of their Study 2 did not demonstrate the effects of demand characteristics. The older "personal acquaintances" were not at higher risk of rape as they claimed. Properly gathered data from the University of Connecticut's laboratory demonstrated that participants regarded the guided imagining of rape to be personally and scientifically beneficial, educating them about the crime and the experience of the rape victim. Prior research had demonstrated that exposure to rape stimuli in combination with debriefing had an educational effect on the decreased endorsement of rape myths. Previously published ethical principles for balancing the rights of scientists, subjects, and society explicate our ethical stance. Informed consent precludes the occurrence of wrongful harms. This poorly designed and poorly reasoned "ethical" critique was unfounded; yet, it might produce a chilling effect on both the use of guided imagery and freedom of inquiry into politically sensitive topics.     

Euthyphro and Moral Realism: A Reply to Harrison

Gerald Harrison identifies two Euthyphro-related concerns for divine command theories and makes the case that to the extent that these concerns make trouble for divine command theories they also make trouble for non-naturalistic moral realism and naturalistic moral realism (call this the parity thesis). He also offers responses to the two concerns on behalf of divine command theorists. I show here that the parity thesis does not hold for the most commonly discussed version of divine command theory. I further argue that his responses to the two concerns fail. Finally, I draw on some of Harrison’s ideas to identify an advantage that non-naturalistic moral realism has over divine command theories and naturalistic moral realism.     

Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community: Another Reply to Zimmerman

Michael Zimmerman has recently argued against the twofold Strawsonian claim that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and that, as a result, moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. I offered a number of objections to Zimmerman’s view, to which Zimmerman responded. In this article, I respond to Zimmerman’s responses to my criticisms.     

Moral Realism and Program Explanation: A Very Short Symposium 1: Reply to Nelson

Donald Davidson once suggested that a liar ‘must intend to represent himself as believing what he does not’. In this paper I argue that, while Davidson was mistaken about lying in a few important respects, his main insight yields a very attractive definition of lying. Namely, you lie if and only if you say something that you do not believe and you intend to represent yourself as believing what you say. Moreover, I show that this Davidsonian definition can handle counter-examples that undercut four prominent definitions of lying: viz., the traditional intend-to-deceive definition, Thomas Carson's definition, Don Fallis's definition, and Andreas Stokke's definition.     

Autonomy and the Moral Symmetry Principle: Reply to Frowe and Tooley

Helen Frowe has recently objected to Michael Tooley’s famous Moral Symmetry Principle, which is meant to show that in themselves killing and letting die are morally equivalent. I argue that her objection is not compelling but a more compelling objection is available. Specifically, Tooley’s rebuttal of a proposed counter-example to his Moral Symmetry Principle has two problematic implications. First, it undercuts the very principle itself. If we reject the proposed counter-example, then any instance of the Moral Symmetry Principle will actually demonstrate the moral in-equivalence of killing and letting die. Second, it commits us to the view, which Tooley wishes to avoid, that we are just as obligated to refrain from doing wrong as we are to prevent others from doing the same. I conclude with a brief discussion of a more general concern regarding Tooley’s basic strategy. My focus here is quite narrow. My claims, if plausible, only show that the Moral Symmetry Principle is unsound and thus cannot serve as a basis for the view that killing and letting die are morally equivalent.     

The Humdrum of Rhetorics: A Reply to Durrheim's "Theoretical Conundrum"

Durrheim's core argument appears upon close inspection not to be very convincing, nor his use of rhetoric. His argument is now shown from the—presumably exemplary—four theories, he cites. He unwarrantly strengthens his argument by preselection, overgeneralization, oversimplification, and by confusing and misconceiving key concepts, and using an arbitrary selection of theories. His suggestion that he knows the vast literature of authoritarianism is not substantiated, considering the unbalanced use of citations, some along the line of Jaensch, Ray and Eysenck. Rhetoric is portrayed as an alternative scientific method, but seems in this way rather to regress into a neodogmatic approach devoid of empirical testing and emancipatory content.     

Reparations,Responsibility, and Formalism : A Reply to Carnes

Philosophia - In a recent paper, Thomas Carnes develops a novel argument for reparations for historical injustices. This Reply shows that Carnes succeeds only at the cost of invoking an implausible...     

Creation, Co-operation, and Causality: A Reply to Gregersen

Niels H. Gregersen seeks to illuminate the nature of continuing divine action in the world and to show that the classical theistic doctrine of continuous creation is consonant with some recent scientific theories of self-productive ("autopoietic") systems. Central to these theories is the concept of co-operation; central to Gregersen's theological appropriation of these theories is also the notion of structuring causality developed by philosopher Fred Dretske. While supportive of Gregersen's overall aims and emphases, we find significant disanalogies between co-operation as a theological construct and as an evolutionary strategy. We also doubt the utility of Dretske's notion for his project.     

Moral Responsibility and the Metaphysics of Free Will: Reply to van Inwagen

In The Philosophical Quarterly , 47 (1997), pp. 373–81, van Inwagen argues in a critical notice of my book The Metaphysics of Free Will that the impression that Frankfurt-type examples show that moral responsibility need not require alternative possibilities results from insufficient analytical precision. He suggests various precise principles which imply that moral responsibility requires alternative possibilities. In reply, I seek to defend the conclusion I have drawn from Frankfurt-type examples: moral responsibility need not require alternative possibilities. I contend that van Inwagen's principles — the principle of possible prevention and the no-matter-what principle — are invalid, and I suggest that their plausibility comes from thinking about a proper subset of the relevant cases.     

Masculinity,Femininity, and Multiple Regression: A Reply to Holmbeck

We respond to Holmbeck's (this issue) criticism of our work. Holmbeck is correct to observe that we mislabel the hierarchical regression analyses that we actually performed in Zeldow et al. (1985, 1987) as stepwise regressions. We also reported some correlation coefficients in Zeldow et al. (1985) which were incorrect. However, further speculation by Holmbeck that alternate analyses would "dramatically" alter our results and that we are guilty of various interpretive errors are shown to be wrong. Most of Holmbeck's conclusions about the potential misuses of multiple regression analyses in androgyny research are supported. However, the substantive conclusions of our earlier articles remain unchanged.