Gert's moral theory and its application to bioethics cases

Bernard Gert's theory of morality has received much critical attention, but there has been relatively little commentary on its practical value for bioethics. An important test of an ethical theory is its ability to yield results that are helpful and plausible when applied to real cases. An examination of Gert's theory and his own attempts to apply it to bioethics cases reveals that there are serious difficulties with regard to its application. These problems are sufficiently severe to support the conclusion that Gert's theory is unacceptable as an approach for resolving bioethics cases, even relatively noncontroversial cases.     

Continuing the dialogue: a reply to Bernard Gert

Continuing the dialogue begun in the March 2006 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, I suggest that Bernard Gert's response to my paper does not adequately address the criticisms I make of his theory's application to bioethics cases.     

The relationship between the frequency and the processing complexity of linguistic structure

In this paper the relative frequencies of the possible resolutions of ambiguities involving noun phrase attachment sites are compared to the results of off-line psycholinguistic measurements of syntactic complexity. A lack of correlation between the two is observed. It is therefore argued that the comprehension system is distinct from what is driving the frequencies in the corpora. A production heuristic separate from the comprehension system is proposed to account for the observed frequencies.We would like to thank Susanne Tunstall for providing linguistic judgments in the corpus analyses reported in Sec. 3.3. We also wish to thank the following people for helpful, comments and discussions on earlier presentations of this paper: the audience at the Eighth Human Sentence Processing Conference, in Tucson Arizona, Maria Babyonyshev, Tom Bever, Martin Corley, Danny Fox, Don Mitchell, Edson Miyamoto, Janet Nicol, Colin Phillips, Gregg Solomon, Michael Spivey-Knowlton, James Thomas, and Tom Wasow. All remaining errors are our own. The second author was supported by the Research Training Grant Language: Acquisition and Computation awarded by the National Science Foundation (U.S.) to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (DIR 9113607), and by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

Attention as a mediating variable in the dynamics of bimanual coordination

The influence of focal attention on the coordination dynamics in a bimanual circle drawing task was investigated. Six right-handed and seven left-handed subjects performed bimanual circling movements, in two modes of coordination, symmetrical or asymmetrical. The frequency of movement was scaled by an auditory metronome from 1.50 Hz to 3.00 Hz in 7 steps. On each trial, subjects were required to attend either to the dominant hand, to a neutral position, or to the nondominant hand.The uniformity of the relative tangential angle was lower in asymmetrical than in symmetrical conditions, but was not influenced by the direction of attention. In the asymmetrical mode, shifts in RTA relations, suggestive of loss of stability, were evident as the movement frequency was increased. Typically, these shifts were mediated by distortions of the trajectory of the nondominant limb. When the nondominant hand was the focus of attention, movements of this hand were more circular, and temporal variability was reduced, at the cost of a greater deviation from the target frequency. Movements of the dominant hand were not affected by the direction of attention. The findings show that although directed attention acts to modify the coordination dynamics, it does so primarily at the level of the individual hands, rather then in terms of the relation between them.     

Cross-modality matches between color and size differences

Eighteen undergraduates, 9 males and 9 females, were asked to make two geometric figures appear as different as two primary colors. They adjusted the size of one of the figures. There was a significant relation between the ratio of wave lengths of the colors and the ratios produced between the figures. Females tended to see a given color pair as more different than males.     

Hare on utilitarianism and intuitive morality

InMoral Thinking R. M. Hare offers a very influential defense of utilitarianism against intuitive objections. Hare's argument is roughly that utilitarianism conflicts with defensible moral intuitions only in unusual cases and that, in such cases, even defensible moral intuitions are unreliable. This paper reconstructs Hare's arguments and argues that they presuppose the success of his problematic proof of utilitarianism. Contrary to what many have thought, Hare's negative defense of utilitarianism against intuitive objections is not separable from his proof. In the second part of the paper I argue that Hare does not succeed in defending utilitarianism against the objection that it is too demanding. The final section of the paper sketches a substantially revised version of Hare's reply to intuitive objections. So revised, the argument is independent of Hare's proof and affords a plausible answer to the objection that utilitarianism is too demanding.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Loyola University and Saint Olaf College. I am greatly indebted to my colleague Harry Gensler for helpful comments on numerous drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Michael Gorr, Brad Hooker, Shelly Kagan, Heidi Malm, Richard Hare, Peter Singer, Onora O'Neill, George Trey, Joe Sullivan, and an anonymous referee. This paper developed out of a series of discussions with Mark Overvold. I dedicate the paper to his memory. I would also like to thank Loyola University for a paid leave of absence which enabled me to write the paper.     

Social Power Bases: A Meta-Anaiytic Examination of Interrelationships and Outcomes1

French and Raven (1959) inferred how the existence of social power bases influences a subordinate's perception and a leader's use of other powers. Based on their propositions, we tested a model using meta-analytic correlations as input to structural equations analysis. We also used recent literature to test a revised model, which fit the data better. Additionally, the meta-analytic effects of the social bases of power on satisfaction with supervision, job satisfaction, and performance were examined.     

Manual asymmetries: feedback processing, output variability, and spatial complexity-resolving some inconsistencies

There is considerable evidence to document the case that the preferred hand is demonstrably superior for a number of manual tasks, although the mechanisms underlying this effect are less clear. Two perspectives have been dominant; one that emphasizes differential efficiency of feedback processing and one that suggests that asymmetries are a function of increased variability of output for the nonpreferred hand. This review considers the mediating effect of the complexity of the visual space in which aimed movements occur. Some inconsistencies may be resolved by noting the superiority of the right cerebral hemisphere for manipulation of spatial relationships. A multilevel, transactional perspective, which must then be adopted, may accommodate both feedback processing and motor output variability.     

What the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) says about homophone frequency inheritance

The present study uses tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states as a unique source of evidence to test the hypothesis of lexical access benefits for homophones--that is, whether low-frequency homophones, such as tee, inherit the lexical access benefits of their high-frequency homophonic counterparts, such as tea. We compared retrieval success rates for low-frequency homophones, for matched low-frequency controls, and for high-frequency controls with the combined frequency of the homophone set. In correct retrievals, low-frequency homophones behaved according to their specific frequency, not differing from the low-frequency controls. However, retrieval failures revealed a different kind of homophone effect. When retrieval failed for targets with a homophone partner, access difficulties tended to be less profound than for low-frequency controls, ending closer to target retrieval more often than low-frequency controls (at Step 2; in a self-resolved TOT or in a TOT with a strong feeling of knowing), and ending far away from target retrieval less often than low-frequency controls (at Step 1; in a notGOT). These results provide evidence against the notion of shared word-form representations for homophonic targets but leave open a door for a weaker form of homophone effects, possibly arising from feedback activation that influences retrieval only when access is sufficiently slowed (as when retrieval fails).