Individualism and suicide

In a sample of 19 nations, suicide rates were not associated with nations' estimates of work locus of control, job satisfaction, psychological well-being, physical well-being, or individualism.     

Individualism and the metaphysics of actions

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved.     

Individualism and Collectivism

Psychologists have long portrayed the mind “as a machine or computer that is the same in all times and places, while only the raw materials processed by the machinery or the data in the computer vary” (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998, p. 918). This state of affairs changed dramatically over the last decade and a rapidly growing body of experimental research documents profound cultural differences in basic psychological processes. To date, much of this work has addressed the influence of individualism or collectivism, often framed in terms of independent vs. interdependent self‐construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; for a comprehensive review, see Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). Other dimensions of culture, which figured prominently in Hofstede's (1980) groundbreaking analysis, received less attention. In this issue's Research Dialogue, Shavitt, Lalwani, Zhang, and Torelli (2006) draw attention to one of these dimensions, namely the distinction between horizontal and vertical cultural orientations, which value equality or emphasize hierarchy, respectively. They review the importance of this distinction for understanding personal values, advertising and consumer persuasion, self‐presentational patterns, and gender differences, noting that the influence of horizontal/vertical orientations is often obscured by their conflation with differences in individualism and collectivism. Commentaries by Aaker (2006), Meyers‐Levy (2006), and Oyserman (2006) elaborate on their analysis and suggest additional avenues for future research. In combination, this set of papers makes a compelling case for extending the analysis of cultural differences in cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior beyond the individualism/collectivism distinction that has captured the lion's share of recent attention.     

Ethical Individualism and the Natural Law

"Generic qualities" are qualities typical of a kind because of the nature of that kind. It is commonly thought that generic qualities are morally irrelevant. For instance, the fact that human beings have a natural tendency to be thus-and-such is not relevant to moral acts involving a particular human being; what matters, rather, are the qualities of that individual. I argue that generic qualities are relevant in certain instances. First, we need to believe that this is so in order to be morally competent. Second, there is no other way to account for the rationality of the universal response to Oedipus the King .     

Individualism and the Cross Contexts Test

Abstract: Jerry Fodor has defended the claim that psychological theories should appeal to narrow rather than wide intentional properties. One of his arguments relies upon the cross contexts test, a test that purports to determine whether two events have the same causally relevant properties. Critics have charged that this test is too weak, since it counts certain genuinely explanatory relational properties in science as being causally irrelevant. Further, it has been claimed, the test is insensitive to the fact that special scientific laws allow for exceptions which do not undermine those laws. This paper refines the cross contexts test to meet these objections while still allowing it to play its role in Fodor's argument for narrow content in psychology.     

Relational Individualism and Feminist Therapy

My aim here is to clarify the practice of honoring and validating the relational model of self which plays an important role in feminist therapy. This practice rests on a tangle of psychological claims, moral and political values, and mental health norms which require analysis. Also, severe pathology affects the relative “relationality” of the self. By understanding it we can better understand the senses of autonomy compatible with and even required for a desired relationality.     

Individualism, Communitarianism and Consensus

There is a contemporary conflict between individualistic andcommunitarian conceptions of rationality. Robert Goodin describes it asa conflict between an enlightenment individualistic conception of a``sovereign artificer'' and ``a socially unencumbered self'' ascontrasted with the communitarian conception of a ``socially embeddedself'' whose identity is formed by his or her community. Should wejustify and explain rationality individualistically or socially? This isa false dilemma when consensus is reached by a model articulated byKeith Lehrer and Carl Wagner. According to this model, the consensusresults from the positive weights individuals give to others and use tocontinually average and, thus, aggregate their allocations. Aggregationconverges toward a consensus in which the social preference and theindividual preferences become identical. The truth of communitarianismis to be found in the aggregate and the truth of individualism in theaggregation. The original conflict dissolves in rational consensus.     

In Defense of Individualism

This paper offers a programmatic philosophical articulation of moral and political individualism. This individualism consists of two main components: value individualism and rights individualism. The former is the view that, for each individual, the end which is of ultimate value is his own well-being. Each individual's well-being has ultimate agent-relative value and the only ultimate values are these agent-relative values. The latter view is that individuals possess moral jurisdiction over themselves, i.e., rights of self-ownership. These rights (along with other rights individuals may come to possess) constrain the manner in which agents may pursue value. For this reason, the articulated individualism is an constrained individualism. Sketches of arguments are offered for both value and rights individualism. And it is argued that the sole legitimate function of legal/political institutions is to further delineate and protect the rights of individuals. However, the paper is also concerned to indicate why this radical moral and political individualism does not have many of the features or implications that are commonly ascribed to it. In this connection, I seek to show how this social doctrine accords with individuals' having concern for the well-being of others, with the emergence of relationships among individuals that have both instrumental and non-instrumental value, with a degree of responsibility for self and others that is often thought to be antithetical to individualism and, in general, with a flourishing of civil order.     

Individualism,Normativity and the Epistemology of Understanding

Philosophical Studies -     

Androgeny,Flexibility, and Individualism

Questionnaire data from 195 college students were examined to clarify the relationships among masculinity, femininity, and androgyny and self-perceived flexibility and individualism. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hiearchical regression showed no evidence for unique positive "androgyny" effects, while higher masculinity was associated with flexibility and individualism, particularly among women. Contrary to expectations, "androgynous" men were more rigid and conforming, while the cross-typed were most flexible and independent.     

Individualism/Collectivism and Social Identity

On the basis of data collected in three representative national surveys carried out in 1990, 1991 and 1993, the relationship between an individualistic/collectivistic orientation and social identity is investigated. Individualism/collectivism is measured using a specially constructed Bulgarian scale. Individualists and collectivists are characterized by specific profiles of social self-identification which differ only slightly from one another. The characteristic of the individualists' profile is that they tend to identify themselves with the political opposition as being republicans, as not being religious, as being distant from those who are rich and close to those of low social status. In contrast, the collectivists profile themselves as people who identify with a socialist political orientation, as being monarchists, religious, close to those who are rich, as standing higher in the social hierarchy and as connected with the structures of power. In terms of the direction of social transition, collectivists emerge as the more conservative part of Bulgarian society. A strongly European identity is associated with those who score highly on the individualism scale. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

个人主义与市民社会——关于个人主义的一种解释

个人主义是西方化发展的一条主线。个人主义可分为极端个人主义与合理个人主义两种。过去人们认为个人主义是在资本主义发展过程中逐步形成的道德原则,与资本主义制度相适应。实际上个人主义是以商品经济为基础的市民社会的产物,资本主义有市民社会,社会主义有市民社会,个人主义在社会主义国家也存在。只是社会主义国家以建立“真正的”集体主义为道德目标,所以它极力反对极端个人主义,只允许合理个人主义存在和发展,并且限制于市场社会领域,反对泛滥于国家生活领域。     

Individualism, Externalism and Idiolectical Meaning

Semantic externalism in contemporary philosophy of language typically – and often tacitly – combines two supervenience claims about idiolectical meaning (i.e., meaning in the language system of an individual speaker). The first claim is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her intrinsic, physical properties. The second is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her understanding of it. I here show that a conception of idiolectical meaning is possible that accepts the “anti-internalism” of the first claim while rejecting (what I shall refer to as) the “anti-individualism” of the second. According to this conception, externally constituted idiolectical meaning supervenes on idiolectical understanding. I begin by trying to show that it is possible to disentangle anti-internalist and anti-individualist strands of argument in Hilary Putnam’s well-known and widely influential “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” Having once argued that the latter strand of argument is not cogent, I then try to show that individualism (in the sense above) can be reconciled with perhaps the most plausible reconstruction of Putnam’s well-known and widely accepted “indexical” theory of natural kind terms. Integral to my defense of the possibility of an individualist externalism about idiolectical meaning are my efforts to demonstrate that, pace Putnam, there is no “division of linguistic labor” when it comes to the fixing the meanings of such terms in a speaker’s idiolect. The fact that average speakers sometimes need defer to experts shows that not reference, but only reliable recognition of what belongs in the extension of a natural kind term is a “social phenomenon.”

Wittgenstein (1958, 14).

     

个人主义道德观辨析--兼论为什么不能以个人主义为主导价值观

个人主义是一种社会政治哲学和道德价值观,主张一切价值均以人为中心,尤其强调个人尊严、个人权利、个人价值、个人平等和个人自由.个人主义不等于利己主义,更不等于极端自私自利、损人利己和无政府主义.个人主义与集体主义有本质区别,在发展社会主义市场经济过程中,不能以个人主义为主导价值观,要坚持集体主义价值导向,反对极端个人主义价值观,正确评价个人主义价值观,抑制其消极作用,肯定其积极作用.     

Individualism and the social in early American social psychology

In this paper an attempt is made to specify the original conception of the social dimensions of cognition, emotion and behavior-and of a distinctively social psychology-that was held by early American social psychologists, but abandoned by later generations of social psychologists committed to Floyd Allport's individualistic experimental program. Two influential forms of "individualism" in the work of Floyd Allport are distinguished and detailed.