Studies in the logic of K-onfirmation

Philosophical Studies - This research article revisits Hempel’s logic of confirmation in light of recent developments in categorical proof theory. While Hempel advocated several logical...     

Reactions to Social Categorization: Evaluating One Argument Against Affirmative Action1

One argument made against affirmative action is that it is undesirable or inappropriate to treat people on the basis of their group membership. The present study attempts to evaluate college students' opinions about this type of social categorization. Two variables were manipulated: type of social group (i.e., one based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or college major), and the purpose of the categorization (to identify, to form a social group, to form a political group, or for affirmative action purposes). Results indicated that students were, in general, opposed to such social categorizations. The presence of interaction effects, however, suggests that opposition to affirmative action is not uniform across different target groups and is not based solely on objections to social categorization. Implications are discussed.     

A response duration schedule: effects of training, extinction, and deprivation

Rats were trained to hold down a lever for at least 40 consecutive seconds. When the lever had been held down for 40 sec, white noise came on. Releasing the bar in the presence of the noise turned off the noise and operated a feeder that delivered a pellet of food. At the end of training, frequency distributions of response durations peaked at 40 to 41 sec. If as in training, holding down the lever produced white noise at the end of 40 sec, and release of the lever terminated the noise and operated the feeder, but no food delivery occurred, duration distributions and several other measures were initially not very different from when food was delivered. However, if during extinction white noise was never produced by lever holding, and feeder operation did not occur upon lever release, most responses were shorter than 1 sec in duration, some were much longer than 41 sec, and duration distributions did not peak at 40 to 41 sec. When reinforcement was reinstated after extinction, performance quickly returned to pre-extinction measures. Further sessions at different levels of deprivation produced only temporary disruptions in performance.     

A justification for excuses: Brown’s discussion of the knowledge view of justification and the excuse manoeuvre

In Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge, Jessica Brown identifies a number of problems for the so-called knowledge view of justification. According to this (unorthodox) view, we cannot justifiably believe what we do not know. Most epistemologists reject this view on the grounds that false beliefs can be justified if, say, supported by the evidence or produced by reliable processes. We think this is a mistake and that many epistemologists are (mistakenly) classifying beliefs as justified because they have properties that indicate that something should be excused. Brown thinks that previous attempts to make this case have been unsuccessful. While the difficulties Brown points to are genuine, I think they show that attempts to explain a classificatory judgment haven't been successful. Still, I would argue that the classification is correct. We need a better explanation of this classificatory judgment. (The situation is similar to the one in which we correctly distinguish knowledge from non-knowledge but then embarrass ourselves trying to explain what this difference consists in.) I will try to clarify the justification-excuse distinction and explain why it's a mistake to insist that beliefs that violate epistemic norms might be justified. Just as it's possible for a rational agent to act without justification in spite of her best intentions (e.g., by using force or violence in trying to defend another from a merely apparent threat), it's possible that a rational thinker who follows the evidence and meets our expectations might nevertheless believe without sufficient justification. If our justified beliefs are supposed to guide us in deciding what to do, we probably should draw on discussions from morality and the law about the justification/excuse distinction to inform our understanding of the epistemic case.

     

Being More Realistic About Reasons: On Rationality and Reasons Perspectivism

This paper looks at whether it is possible to unify the requirements of rationality with the demands of normative reasons. It might seem impossible to do because one depends upon the agent's perspective and the other upon features of the situation. Enter Reasons Perspectivism. Reasons perspectivists think they can show that rationality does consist in responding correctly to reasons by placing epistemic constraints on these reasons. They think that if normative reasons are subject to the right epistemic constraints, rational requirements will correspond to the demands generated by normative reasons. While this proposal is prima facie plausible, it cannot ultimately unify reasons and rationality. There is no epistemic constraint that can do what reasons perspectivists would need it to do. Some constraints are too strict. The rest are too slack. This points to a general problem with the reasons‐first program. Once we recognize that the agent's epistemic position helps determine what she should do, we have to reject the idea that the features of the agent's situation can help determine what we should do. Either rationality crowds out reasons and their demands or the reasons will make unreasonable demands.     

Self-determination and the use of self-presentation strategies

The authors evaluated the relationships among individual differences in self-determination and self-presentation. The authors expected less self-determined individuals to report engaging in self-presentation strategies more frequently. To be more specific, the authors expected higher autonomy scores to be associated with the use of fewer self-presentation strategies, whereas they expected higher controlled and higher impersonal orientation scores to be associated with the use of more self-presentation strategies, but for different reasons. Participants (141 women, 111 men, 1 person of unreported gender) completed self-report measures of self-determination and self-presentation. The results indicated that higher autonomy scores were related to the use of fewer self-presentation tactics. Being more controlled was associated with engaging in more self-presentation across the board. Higher impersonal scores were primarily associated with engaging in strategies to gain assistance or prevent high expectations.     

Active prompting to decrease cell phone use and increase seat belt use while driving

Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for those aged 3 to 33, with 43,005 (118 per day) Americans killed in 2002 alone. Seat belt use reduces the risk of serious injury in an accident, and refraining from using a cell phone while driving reduces the risk of an accident. Cell phone use while driving increases accident rates, and leads to 2,600 U.S. fatalities each year. An active prompting procedure was employed to increase seat belt use and decrease cell phone use among drivers exiting a university parking lot. A multiple baseline with reversal design was used to evaluate the presentation of two signs: "Please Hang Up, I Care" and "Please Buckle Up, I Care." The proportion of drivers who complied with the seat belt prompt was high and in line with previous research. The proportion of drivers who hung up their cell phones in response to the prompt was about equal to that of the seat belt prompt. A procedure that reduces cell phone use among automobile drivers is a significant contribution to the behavioral safety literature.