Can Lutheran Theology and Virtue Ethics Be Friends?

Lutheran theology is generally suspicious of virtue ethics. This suspicion arises from (1) the Lutheran commitment to justification by faith in God's unconditional promise; and (2) Luther's corollary understanding of sin as existential self‐absorption. Some Lutheran theologians have sought to incorporate virtue ethics by using it as an orientation for Christian life, while making sure to avoid any contamination of the doctrine of justification by virtue ethics. My project is to consider the possibility of a mutual illumination and interaction between the doctrine of justification and virtue ethics’ focus on formation by habituation. As an aid in exploring this possibility I use the distinction in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics between the “ultimate” and the “penultimate.”     

The Epistemology of Testimonal Trust

According to a strong assurance view of testimonial trust, a speaker's assurance that p grounds a reason for the hearer to believe p. While the strong view offers a genuinely inter-personal account of testimony, it faces a problem about bootstrapping: how can trust generate epistemic reasons when trust can obtain between unreliable speakers and hearers? In contrast, a weaker assurance view holds that a speaker's assurance that p grounds a reason for the hearer to believe p only if the speaker is reliable. While the weaker view offers an epistemic account of testimony, it faces a problem about redundancy: how can trust play any epistemic role when the speaker's reliability seems to pre-empt any contribution that trust may make towards such epistemic reason? This paper argues that neither horn of this dilemma is convincing once proponents of assurance views avail themselves of an epistemic distinction between reasons of rationality as a guide to reasonable belief and reasons of justification as a guide to true belief. Whereas testimonial assurance grounds rational reasons, which need not make probable the beliefs they make reasonable, testimonial reliability grounds justificatory reasons, which need not make reasonable the beliefs they make probable.     

Physicalism, Conceivability and Strong Necessities

David Chalmers’ conceivability argument against physicalism relies on the entailment from a priori conceivability to metaphysical possibility. The a posteriori physicalist rejects this premise, but is consequently committed to psychophysical strong necessities. These don’t fit into the Kripkean model of the necessary a posteriori, and they are therefore, according to Chalmers, problematic. But given semantic assumptions that are essential to the conceivability argument, there is reason to believe in microphysical strong necessities. This means that some of Chalmers’ criticism is unwarranted, and the rest equally afflicts the dualist. Moreover, given that these assumptions are independently plausible, there’s a general case to be made for the existence of strong necessities outside the psychophysical domain.     

Empirically Defining Treatment Response and Remission in Body Dysmorphic Disorder Using a Short Self-Report Instrument

Determining response or remission status in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) usually requires a lengthy interview with a trained clinician. This study sought to establish empirically derived cutoffs to define treatment response and remission in BDD using a brief self-report instrument, the Appearance Anxiety Inventory (AAI). Results from three clinical trials of BDD were pooled to create a sample of 123 individuals who had received cognitive-behavioral therapy for BDD, delivered via the Internet. The AAI was compared to gold-standard criteria for response and remission in BDD, based on the clinician-administered Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, modified for BDD (BDD-YBOCS), and evaluated using signal detection analysis. The results showed that a ≥ 40% reduction on the AAI best corresponded to treatment response, with a sensitivity of 0.71 and a specificity of 0.84. A score ≤ 13 at posttreatment was the optimal cutoff in determining full or partial remission from BDD, with a sensitivity of 0.75 and a specificity of 0.88. These findings provide benchmarks for using the AAI in BDD treatment evaluation when resource-intensive measures administered by clinicians are not feasible.     

Accounting for individual differences in speed in the discretized signed residual time model

With advances in computerized tests, it has become commonplace to register not just the accuracy of the responses provided to the items, but also the response time. The idea that for each response both response accuracy and response time are indicative of ability has explicitly been incorporated in the signed residual time (SRT) model (Maris & van der Maas, 2012, Psychometrika, 77, 615–633), which assumes that fast correct responses are indicative of a higher level of ability than slow correct responses. While the SRT model allows one to gain more information about ability than is possible based on considering only response accuracy, measurement may be confounded if persons show differences in their response speed that cannot be explained by ability, for example due to differences in response caution. In this paper we propose an adapted version of the SRT model that makes it possible to model person differences in overall speed, while maintaining the idea of the SRT model that the speed at which individual responses are given may be indicative of ability. We propose a two-dimensional SRT model that considers dichotomized response time, which allows one to model differences between fast and slow responses. The model includes both an ability and a speed parameter, and allows one to correct the estimates of ability for possible differences in overall speed. The performance of the model is evaluated through simulation, and the relevance of including the speed parameter is studied in the context of an empirical example from formative educational assessment.     

Group virtue epistemology

Synthese - According to Sosa (A virtue epistemology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007; Reflective knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; Knowing full well, Princeton University...     

ON THE EINSTELLUNG EFFECT IN PROBLEM SOLVING: Some critical remarks

Objections are raised to Luchins' interpretation of the Einstellung effect and his negative evaluation of this effect. It is proposed to shift the emphasis from behavior to perception. The subject does not develop a 'bad' habit, but acts according to the specific type of problem which the experienced situation seems to present. Two types of problems are distinguished: whole problems, in which the critical problems in the Einstellung experiments are perceived as application situations, and part problems, in which the critical problems are perceived as problems in their own right.     

Interrogatory Theology

Abstract : Theological engagement with young people—and indeed with people of all ages—benefits when it attends to the practice of asking questions. The understanding of theological statements requires an appreciation of the questions behind them. In addition, questions are not merely instruments for getting to the answers. Good questions themselves generate insight. Questioning works best in an atmosphere of trust and freedom. This article develops these points by narrating experiences of theological engagement with young people.     

Modeling Differences Between Response Times of Correct and Incorrect Responses

Psychometrika - While standard joint models for response time and accuracy commonly assume the relationship between response time and accuracy to be fully explained by the latent variables of the...