Character-Principlism and the Particularity Objection

This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle-based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character-principlism .
I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and then contrast two views – both of which insist on the importance of attentiveness to particularity – about the relative normative status of principles and particular cases. I present some reasons for believing that we need a more normatively robust conception of the role of moral principles than the particularists provide. In the main portion of the paper, I discuss how character-principlism sees principles functioning in our lives and the lives we lead with others. I contrast this with some other accounts of desirable character that particularists can embrace, and argue that these are seriously flawed because, unlike character-principlism, they cannot satisfactorily explain how a person could possess the constancy of character that moral integrity requires.     

Cerebral Anesthetization for Localization of Speech: The Contribution of W. James Gardner

In 1949, the neurologist Juhn Wada reported the first use of a new procedure for determining the localization of speech and language in neurological patients: examination of the effects on speech and language after injecting a barbiturate, sodium amytal, into the internal carotid artery of each hemisphere in succession. By the 1960s, Wada'sIntracarotid Amobarbital Procedure,orIAP,had become the method of choice for identifying the speech-dominant side in one kind of neurological patient, persons with epilepsy who are candidates for surgical resection, and it remains so today. In 1941, however, an American neurosurgeon, W. James Gardner, reported his use of a different anesthetization procedure for speech localization in neurological patients. Instead of injecting sodium amytal through the blood supply, as in the IAP, Gardner injected procaine hydrochloride directly into cortical tissue. In this paper, we provide a brief biography of Gardner. We then discuss his method of cortical anesthetization, the theoretical and empirical background guiding his use of this method and his choice of patients, and, finally, the fate of Gardner's method within the scientific community.     

Construct validity and test-retest reliability of a date rape decision-latency measure

In two studies, the construct (convergent and discriminant) validity and test-retest reliability of a date rape decision-latency measure was examined. In Study 1, 174 college men completed measures related to sexual aggression and listened to an audiotaped simulation of a date rape, during which cues of nonconsent and force gradually escalated over time. Participants were instructed to respond, by pressing a button which recorded the latency of their decisions in seconds, if and when they believed the man depicted in the scenario should stop his sexual advances. Results demonstrated positive associations between prolonged decision latencies and sexually aggressive behavior, calloused sexual beliefs, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and sexual promiscuity. In Study 2, initial results were cross-validated in a sample of 102 college men, and discriminant validity was established as decision latencies were unassociated with measures of social desirability, alcohol consumption and drug use. Test-retest reliability assessed over a 2-week interval was .87.The authors wish to thank Alan Gross and Brian Marx for providing the audiotaped stimulus materials, Richard Marsh for writing the decision-latency computer program, Jason Hicks for assisting with programming, and the undergraduate research assistants for serving as experimenters.     

SUBLIMINAL EXPOSURE TO DEATH-RELATED STIMULI INCREASES DEFENSE OF THE CULTURAL WORLDVIEW

Abstract— Three experiments reported here provide empirical support for the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that unconscious concerns about death motivate allegiance to cultural beliefs, Study 1, contrasted exposure to a subliminal death-related stimulus, a standard mortality-salience treatment, and a neutral subliminal stimulus, and found that both the subliminal and the standard reminder of mortality led to more favorable evaluations of people who praised subjects' cultural worldview and more unfavorable evaluations of those who challenged it Study 2, replicated this finding by comparing the effects of exposure to subliminal death stimuli and subliminal pain stimuli. Study 3, contrasted subliminal death stimuli, supraliminal death stimuli, and subliminal pain stimuli and found that only subliminal death stimuli produced these effects.     

Correspondence

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

The distribution postulate in Bohm's theory

On Bohm's formulation of quantum mechanics particles always have determinate positions and follow continuous trajectories. Bohm's theory, however, requires a postulate that says that particles are initially distributed in a special way: particles are randomly distributed so that the probability of their positions being represented by a point in any regionR in configuration space is equal to the square of the wave-function integrated overR. If the distribution postulate were false, then the theory would generally fail to make the right statistical predictions. Further, if it were false, then there would at least in principle be situations where a particle would approach an eigenstate of having one position but in fact always be somewhere very different. Indeed, we will see how this might happen even if the distribution postulate were true. This will help to show how loose the connection is between the wave-function and the positions of particles in Bohm's theory and what the precise role of the distribution postulate is. Finally, we will briefly consider two attempts to formulate a version of Bohm's theory without the distribution postulate.     

Definedness

Questions of definedness are ubiquitous in mathematics. Informally, these involve reasoning about expressions which may or may not have a value. This paper surveys work on logics in which such reasoning can be carried out directly, especially in computational contexts. It begins with a general logic of partial terms, continues with partial combinatory and lambda calculi, and concludes with an expressively rich theory of partial functions and polymorphic types, where termination of functional programs can be established in a natural way.Lecture for mini-conference on Partial Functions and Programming: Foundational Questions, U.C. Irvine, 17 February 1995. I wish to thank Professor Karel Lambert for his work in organizing this conference. (Research supported by grants from the N.S.F.)