Deterrence, Compellence, and Prospect Theory

Deterrence and compellence couple demands for inaction and action, respectively, to a threat of sanctions. Conventional wisdom holds that deterrence requires less coercive effort than compellence, yet expected utility theory contradicts this claim. Only if exogenous factors affect these situations in a systematic and asymmetrical manner will the claim hold within expected utility theory. Prospect theory provides a systematic and endogenous account for this claim. Experimental findings suggest the degree of effort required to obtain compliance in comparable deterrence and compellence situations. Deterrence is "easier" than compellence, but this relationship is variable. Deterrence requires less effort than expected, and the relative effort it requires decreases substantially as the stakes demanded and costs threatened grow. Compellence requires more effort than expected, and the relative effort it requires decreases slightly as the stakes demanded and costs threatened grow.     

Crisis Management: Looking Back to Look Forward

Alexander George made a seminal contribution to theories of preventive diplomacy, crisis management, deterrence, and coercive diplomacy. Although he made his contribution in the highly structured environment of the Cold War, his analysis of the close connections between positive and negative inducements, the importance of interests in shaping outcomes, and the dangers of threat-based strategies as substitutes for policy speaks to the central challenges of contemporary global politics.     

Building Communities, Bridging Gaps: Alexander George's Contributions to Research Methods

This article assesses Alexander L. George's seminal contributions in six areas of political psychology and qualitative case study methods. These include George's work on psychological inputs in political processes, the intersection of history and political science, methods of within-case analysis such as process tracing, the use of structured, focused case comparisons (SFCC), the development of typological theories, and the connections among theory, empirical research, teaching, and policy. The article concludes with an analysis of four ongoing dimensions of George's research agenda: the need to integrate theories on purposive, cognitive, social, and motivational dynamics of decision making; the importance of methodological safeguards against our own cognitive biases as researchers; ways of integrating qualitative, quantitative, formal, and experimental research methods; and ways of modeling and testing theories on causal complexity.     

Philosophical Scrutiny of the Strategic 'Defence' Initiatives

Abstract  Many people have misgivings about the strategy of nuclear deterrence. Some of those misgivings centre on issues of effectiveness: safety depends entirely upon the dissuasion of an adversary. Other misgivings centre on moral concerns: the essence of deterrence is the threat, and the conditional intention, to kill millions of noncombatants. US President Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative promised an alternative to deterrence, a strategic posture of interception of an adversary's weapons rather than preclusion of the decision to attack. It is conceived as a means of 'defending' the United States that does not threaten anyone. In this essay I examine various SDI proposals. I argue that only one of these could justify the transition to a strategic posture of 'defence', and might be a genuine alternative to deterrence—the one that is least feasible technologically. Only that one could plausibly be claimed to be morally superior to deterrence—and for strategic reasons, even its claim is dubious at best. Technologically more feasible proposals are not 'defences', but variants of deterrence. Since that is so, the most common and dramatic claim of their moral superiority to deterrence is incoherent.     

Plato's Theory of Punishment and Penal Code in the Laws

I argue that the degree to which a criminal should be punished is determined by three elements: a baseline amount that proportionally compensates the victim and an additional penalty that, first, reforms the criminal and, second, deters others from becoming unjust. My interpretation provides a solution to the interpretive puzzle that has most vexed commentators: the alleged tension between Plato's philosophical theory of punishment and the content of his penal code. I defend a two-step solution to the puzzle. First, on my interpretation, because of the broad role that deterrence must play, this alleged tension is—to a degree—merely apparent. Second, the actual tension can be explained by Plato's commitment to the rule of law, given the epistemic limitations of actual people.     

Coercion and ‘voluntary’ admission: An examination of psychiatric patient views

This article examines coercion in voluntary psychiatric patients. Three main themes are highlighted using qualitative and quantitative data from a sample of 412 psychiatric patients surveyed in 1990 who had experienced at least one period of hospitalisation. The themes are: the extent to which the label of ‘voluntary’ was an indicator of the patients' experience of being in hospital of their own volition; aspects of admission which patients considered to be coercive; and the impact that coercion might have on patients' views about their problem, professionals and treatment. The findings suggest that a substantial number of nominally voluntary patients reported coercive aspects of their hospitalisation. The impact of feeling coerced was found to produce a more rejecting attitude towards psychiatric services. The findings are discussed in relation to British mental health legislation and care. I particularly want to thank David Pilgrim for his collaboration with the research which made this article possible and for his useful and supportive comments. I am also indebted to John Monahan for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Commentary on Ted Ruffman’s “Belief or not belief: …”

I applaud Ruffman for cautioning us against interpreting early sensitivity to others’ beliefs as evidence for an innate theory of mind and for making room for learning. In turn, however, I caution against his claim that all infants need is to understand that people act depending on what they perceive. Instead, infants may keep experiential records (Perner & Roessler, 2010) for other people or records of what they have registered (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009), which makes it less obvious that all required knowledge can be acquired by statistical learning. As a general criticism I remonstrate with current theory of mind research on its lack of concern that we understand people as acting for reasons which goes beyond detecting lawful regularities in behaviour.     

Is revenge about retributive justice,deterring harm,or both?

This paper explores the vast literature on revenge and retributive punishment to ascertain whether revenge seekers are primarily seeking retribution or to deter future harm. This review considers research findings from social, consumer, evolutionary, and industrial/organizational psychology. Revenge is defined as an action in response to some perceived wrongdoing by another party that is intended to inflict damage, injury, discomfort, or punishment on the party judged responsible. In support of the perspective that revenge is about retribution, vengeance is typically triggered only by unjust harms, revenge‐seekers report a moral imperative, justice beliefs predict revenge, and justice‐related information has the greatest influence on punishment calculations. On the other hand, a plethora of findings in economic games such as serial prisoner dilemmas reveal that tit‐for‐tat style revenge is an effective means of deterring future harm. Overall, the evidence seems to support a retribution model of revenge over a deterrence model; however, as this review describes in its conclusion, the psychology of revenge is in need of further investigation along several key dimensions.     

Light and color in a void: The analysis of a special needs child

This clinical report comes from the five year, four day a week analysis of a male child. What is special is that this treatment is of a child with marked mental retardation. I have retained this nomenclature because that is how Ricardo's parents described his mental capacity. What they meant was that he was greatly impaired in his cognition and this could be seen in Ricardo's severe cognitive, social, behavioral, and relational improprieties. I have privileged the function of psychoanalytic understanding and the role of transference to bring about modifications in this child's internal world. And I have considered the patient's psychotic mental state to be in need of psychoanalytic treatment not withstanding his psychosis's connection to his cognitive handicap. I have also added information I have received after the analysis, information that demonstrates continued integration coming from the analytic process. Owing to Ricardo's limited mental capacities, this article advances clinical information that is not often found in analyses of children. There are possibly many other children like him who nonetheless would benefit from dynamic psychoanalytic understanding. On the other hand, I shall not discuss this matter theoretically, even though some theoretic considerations are necessary. Clinical practice and the transferential relation are this report's principal material.     

Otto Rank: beginnings, endings, and current experience

I have traced the theories of Otto Rank as they appeared in his major technical writings. Against this background, I have discussed references to Rank in past and contemporary psychoanalytic literature. This paper describes three important contributions of Rank--his birth trauma theory, leading to his theory of the birth of the self; his emphasis on present experience (forerunner of the current "here-and-now" theory); and his writings about the creative potential of the termination process.     

What Should Realists Say About Honor Cultures?

Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen’s (1996) influential account of “cultures of honor” speculates that honor norms are a socially-adaptive deterrence strategy. This theory has been appealed to by multiple empirically-minded philosophers, and plays an important role in John Doris and Alexandra Plakias’ (2008) antirealist argument from disagreement. In this essay, I raise four objections to the Nisbett-Cohen deterrence thesis, and offer another theory of honor in its place that sees honor as an agonistic normative system regulating prestige competitions. Since my account portrays honor norms as radically different from liberal ones, it actually strengthens Doris and Plakias’ case in some respects: cultures of honor are not merely superficially different from Western liberal ones. Nonetheless, the persistent appeal of honor’s principles, and their moral plausibility in certain contexts, suggests not antirealism, but pluralism—a reply on behalf of realism that itself has considerable empirical support.     

学业自我概念的建构:内/外参照模型研究述评

内/外参照模型在理论上同时考虑了社会比较和维度比较两种比较方式在建构个体学业自我概念过程中的作用。近年来,对内/外参照模型的研究进展主要体现在三个方面:对该模型进行跨文化一致性检验;提出了维度比较理论;与大鱼小池效应相整合。这些研究表明学业自我概念具有学科特异性,研究者要更加注重学业自我概念及其它学业变量的学科特异性研究,并加强内/外参照模型的调节因素研究,教师及家长要引导学生合理选择比较方式。     

Psychopathology: A Simple Twist of Fate or a Meaningful Distortion of Normal Development? Toward an Etiologically Based Alternative for the DSM Approach

In this comment, I focus on a central issue that spans the entirety of Sidney Blatt's research career, namely his contributions to the development of a theoretically consistent and clinically relevant classification system of psychopathology. First, I discuss empirical evidence concerning the key assumptions underlying the currently dominant classification system of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Second, I compare these assumptions with assumptions underlying Blatt's categorization of psychopathology based on his distinction between two developmental lines, that is, self-definition and relatedness, together with a discussion of recent research on these two developmental lines in the context of the development of a more etiologically based classification system of depression and other disorders. Finally, I argue that research concerning Blatt's model of normal and pathological development—aside from direct contributions—may also inform empirically derived criteria for the development of a theoretically consistent and clinically useful way of classifying psychopathology.     

THE PHILOSOPHY OF JOSEPH MARGOLIS

Abstract: In this article I focus on some of Joseph Margolis's contributions to medical ethics. I first discuss some of Margolis's normative and metaphysical views on death and abortion, particularly in his early work Negativities , as well as some of his metaphysical assumptions. Then these views and assumptions are related to his theory of persons and, by implication, his theory of culture, set forth in a number of later works. In the course of the discussion, I call attention to some controversial issues of today, such as embryonic stem cell research and the creation of embryos for the sole purpose of research, and ask for Margolis's views on them, given his earlier contributions and assumptions. Finally, I comment on his relativism and his program for research in aesthetics and ethics.     

Severity effect on compensation and imprisonment recommendations: Deterrence as a mediator in Singapore

Severe, compared to mild, harm results in harsher punishment. According to the model of people as intuitive prosecutors, the severity effect is a deterrence message. The authors tested this hypothesis in two studies in Singapore. In Study 1, participants learnt about the severity of harm arising from an accidental or intentional act, and expressed anger, made attributions, assigned blame, recommended compensation by and imprisonment of the offender, and indicated the degree to which they were guided by the punishment goals of deterrence and retribution. As hypothesized, the prosecutorial mindset was multidimensional, and the deterrence goal mediated the severity effect on punishment. In Study 2, the severity effect held when the punishment goal was unspecified but not when it was experimentally specified as deterrence.     

Inhibiting doping in sports: deterrence is necessary,but not sufficient

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is a significant problem in sport. It cheats clean athletes of their hard-earned rewards from perfecting their skills though dedication and hard work. It defrauds fans by substituting a distorted playing field for a true competition. Anti-doping agencies have been charged with enforcing drug policies, primarily through the use of drug testing programs. We propose that drug testing, while important, is not sufficient to achieve deterrence. Engaging the principles of perceptual deterrence and development of a moral community of athletes can greatly enhance compliance with rules.     

The Environmental Ethics of Fan Ruiping’s Revisionist Confucianism

Fan Ruiping is engaged in a wide-ranging project to reconstruct Confucianism for the contemporary period. It includes his sustained attack on John Rawls’ theory of distributive justice, various Chinese policies and practices on the delivery of health and elder care, and global business ethics. This paper describes his revised Confucian understanding of environmental morality under the metaphor of nature as garden and man as gardener. I argue the current state of this effort is in need of a more robust appropriation of Chinese sources and a greater attention to comparative analogues using the garden metaphor. I conclude with some suggestions that might advance this specific aspect of his project.     

Religiosity and Public Reason: The Case of Direct Action Animal Rights Advocacy

Recent social science research indicates that animal rights philosophy plays the functional role of a religion in the lives of the most committed animal rights advocates. In this paper, I apply the functional religion thesis to the recent debate over the place of direct action animal rights advocacy in democratic theory. I outline the usefulness of the functional religion thesis and explain its implications for theorists that call for deliberative theories to be more inclusive of coercive forms of activism.     

Roots of the Pavlovian Society''s Missions of the Past and Present: The Pavlov Dimension

This paper offers an interpretation of the relation between Pavlov's life and work and the missions of the Pavlovian Society, both past ("observation and observation") and present ("interdisciplinary research on the integrated organism"). I begin with an account of Pavlov's life and his influence on contemporary thought. I then indicate the relation of some of Pavlov's attitudes (e.g., his motto, his epistemological stance) to the Society's past mission. In the concluding and most controversial section, I argue for six guiding principles derived from Pavlov, to be applied to the Society's mission. These are: (a) a confident methodological behaviorism; (b) a significant role assigned to both physiological and psychological factors in the prediction and control of the integrated organism; (c) approximately equal taxonomic precision of physiological and psychological explanatory concepts; (d) distrust of teleological explanatory concepts; (e) rejection of psychology's instrumentalist "cognitive paradigm shift"; and (f) rejection of the representational theory of knowledge.     

Adversary effects and the tactics of violent offenders

We examine the implication of adversary effects for target choice, lethal intent, and the use of weapons and allies in violent incidents. Adversary effects refer to the tendency of offenders to make tactical decisions based on the coercive power of victims and potential victims. Using the victim's gender as a proxy for coercive power, we analyzed violent incidents from the National Incident‐Based Reporting System (2005–2014). The sample included over six million assaults, robberies, and homicides. Consistent with adversary effects, offenders who attack males (vs. females) are more likely to (a) kill victims; (b) use guns, knives, blunt objects, poison, and automobiles; (c) use male (but not female) allies; and (d) use multiple allies. The evidence for target choice is mixed: unarmed female offenders, but not unarmed male offenders, are more likely to target females than males. The evidence shows how a simple theoretical principle can parsimoniously account for basic patterns of violence in society related to gender, weapons, and group violence.