The Evil of Death: A Reply to Yi

In previous work we have presented a reply to the Lucretian Symmetry, which has it that it is rational to have symmetric attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. Our reply relies on Parfit-style thought-experiments. Here we reply to a critique of our approach by Huiyuhl Yi, which appears in this journal: Brueckner and Fischer on the evil of death. We argue that this critique fails to attend to the specific nature of the thought-experiments (and our associated argument). More specifically, the thought-experiments seek to elicit attitudes about (say) past pleasures per se, and not insofar as such pleasures are connected to more pleasures in the future or a greater total amount of pleasures in one’s life overall.     

The Rationality of Dissensus: A Reply to Goodin

Robert Goodin claims that he has undermined my ``proof of theinevitability of rational consensus among all patient people of goodwill.' I did not intend my position as a proof of the inevitabilityof rational consensus, however, and, in fact, I insist on thereasonableness of dissensus in some cases. I welcome the opportunity,provoked by Goodin's interesting reflections, to clarify my position. Iproved with Carl Wagner that iterated weighted averaging converges towardconsensus under conditions of connectedness and constancy resulting fromthe positive weight that individuals give to each other. I allow, nevertheless,that individuals may rationally assign zero weight to each other in a waythat blocks convergence and yields dissensus. The assignment of zeroweight to others will be rational, for example, when the interests ormoral concerns of the individual would be co-opted as a result of givingpositive weight to others. The assignment of positive weight to othersrequires modification of one's position, however, for the refusal to modifyone's position is mathematically equivalent to assigning zero weight toothers. Dissent is rational to avoid being co-opted, but the cost ofdisensus may be the assignment of zero weight to others and theirrational reciprocation.     

The IQ: A Reply

Approach vs. be approached behavioral measures of personal space were taken on 102 fifth and sixth grade children, each of whom was assigned to one of three groups: (a) Model-Close condition, (b) Model Far condition, and (c) No-Model Control group. A male peer served as model (M), and a 41-year-old female served as the object person. Results revealed a strong modeling tendency with both girls and boys tending to stay close or far from the object person as a function of M behavior. Boys and girls tended to behave similarly in the Close and Far modeling groups, but girls used more space in the No-Model Control condition. These findings suggest that modeling had an attenuating effect on sex differences in use of space. It was concluded that modeling theory is a viable conceptual tool for use in personal space research.     

The Normalization of Non-religion: A Reply to James Lewis

James Lewis challenged the assertion that religious ‘nones’ are becoming more like the general population. The evidence he offers is insufficient to make his case, however: the generational dynamics of religious change are invisible if one takes a cross-sectional snapshot of the entire population, undifferentiated by age. In addition, write-in responses on census and survey forms do not provide a good basis for studying the characteristics of the very large and growing number of people who are non-religious.     

The Intrinsic Value of Sport: A Reply to Culbertson

Leon Culbertson's recent contribution, ‘Does Sport Have Intrinsic Value?’ objects to the account of the value of sport as intrinsic value I had developed in my Sport, Rules and Values; in particular, as this occurs in my argument that the value of some sports resided in the possibility of their functioning as a moral laboratory. He identifies two accounts of intrinsic value; and shows that neither would fit my purposes seamlessly. He urges that my account of the place of normative reasons cannot generate intrinsic value: rather, the person whose reasons they are somehow imports that value. Yet he has misunderstood my particularist conception of values; and the place occupied by my contextualism – these, rather than a residual commitment to essentialism, are what generates an apparent inconsistency he identifies. But they also explain it away. As a result, much of his concern to find some exact account of the term ‘intrinsic’ is misplaced: we need to look contextually. Further, the project of my discussion was limited to showing, first, how the moral laboratory idea might explain the value of some sport (on the assumption that sport had intrinsic value); and, second, how failures of realisation of that intrinsic value might be traced to the distinction between motivating reasons and normative ones.     

The Elusive Homosexual: A Reply to Stone and Schneider

Summary: In a rebuttal of the Stone and Schneider validation study of the Wheeler signs of homosexuality in the Rorschach, it was argued that (a) homosexuality is not a proper clinical diagnosis, (b) homosexuals do not differ in psychological functioning from hetereosexuals, and (c) the Wheeler signs represent an atomistic approach of use only to those defensive clinicians unwilling to encounter the unique character of their clients.     

The Necessary Limits to Temptation: The Turnkey Project

In case of special engineering projects of important relevance it is interesting to pay attention to several possible risks; some of them are in the field of morality or ethics. Due to the social importance of these risks, additional considerations or even additional warranties are justified.     

The Origination of a Human Being: A Reply to Oderberg

Recently David S. Oderberg has tried to refute three arguments that have been advanced in favour of the view that a human being does not begin to exist at fertilization. These arguments turn on the absence of differentiation between the embryoblast and trophoblast, the possibility of monozygotic twinning, and the totipotency of the cells during the first days after fertilization. It is here contended that Oderberg fails to rebut these arguments, though it is conceded that the first two arguments are not conclusive. They do, however, make it at least as reasonable to deny this early origination as to affirm it. It should be noticed that this is all that is needed by those who have used these arguments to dispute that something with a special moral status exists right from fertilization. Nonetheless, it will be seen that the third argument could be developed to the point of giving a conclusive reason to believe that a human being does not begin to exist at fertilization.     

The Epistemic Status of Auxiliary Hypotheses: A Reply to Douven

I have previously argued that anti-realism cannot use the claim that theories have empirically equivalent rivals (EE) to establish that theories are underdetermined by evidence (UD). Douven objects that the auxiliary hypotheses needed to generate observational equivalence need not as I claimed be themselves underdetermined if (EE) is true, because they may be either compatible with observation or acceptable in the constructive-empiricist sense. I reply that these conditions are not strong enough to establish (EE): the auxiliaries have to be epistemically warranted if they are to fix a theory's observational commitments unambiguously. The support they require need not presuppose their respective observational consequences, because there are more holistic sources of warrant.     

The Philosophical Foundations of Humanistic Psychology: A Reply to McMullen

McMullen (1982) attempted in his critique of humanistic psychology to attack its philosophical foundations, taking these to be phenomenology and a doctrine of self determination. In this paper we argue that McMullen has misrepresented the philosophical position of the humanists, then we examine McMullen's own philosophical assumptions. We show that he has assumed the philosophy of empirical realism which we argue is inadequate as a foundation for science. It is shown that it is the inadequacy of McMullen's assumptions which underlies his failure to comprehend the position of the humanists. We then present a version of theoretical realism and show how, in terms of this, a conception of being can be justified which allows for the emergence of hierarchical order. On the basis of this conception of being we reassess the nature of self-determination and motivation, showing how, in opposition to both the empirical realism of McMullen and the philosophical dualism of conventional humanistic psychology, a naturalistic form of humanistic psychology is justified.