SLOTE ON RATIONAL DILEMMAS AND RATIONAL SUPEREROGATION

The so-called optimising conception of rationality includes (amongst other things) the following two claims: (i) that it is irrational to choose an option if you know there is a better one, and (ii) there are no situations in which an agent, through no practical fault of her own, cannot avoid acting irrationally. As part of his ongoing attempt to explain why we need to go beyond the optimising conception, Michael Slote discusses a number of examples in which it seems that (i) and (ii) are inconsistent. According to Slote, these situations seem to involve the existence of rational supererogation (a denial of (i)), or rational dilemmas (a denial of (ii)). The purpose of this paper is to examine Slote's arguments for these claims, and to propose an alternative solution to the problem he presents.     

Pornographic Materials and Commodity Theory

In a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 (age restriction vs. no age restriction × sex of subject × pornography vs. nonpornography × pre-stimuli vs. post-stimuli test) factorial design, 40 males and 40 females received an experimental booklet containing either pornographic or nonpornographic pictures. Prior to seeing the pictures, half of the subjects of each sex were informed that the photographs came from magazines for adults only (21 years old and over), while the other half received no such information. Subjects were asked to rate the desirability of the pictures as well as their liking of and desire to read and purchase such materials prior to viewing and after viewing the pictures. The results indicated that (a) subjects who were not given age restriction information rated the yet unseen pictures more desirable than subjects who received age restriction information; (b) subjects who were given age restriction information rated the already seen pictures more desirable than subjects who received no age restriction information; (c) males rated pornographic pictures more favorably than did females; (d) subjects in the age restriction information condition expected the yet unseen pictures to be more pornographic than subjects in the no age restriction information condition; and (e) subjects, after seeing the stimuli, rated nonpornographic pictures more desirable than pornographic pictures. There was no support for the hypothesis that the effect of age restriction is an anticipatory phenomenon. The data in part supported and in part conflicted with Fromkin and Brock's (1973) proposition that imposing restrictions on the sale or purchase of pornographic materials will make these materials more attractive and desirable than they would be if there were no restrictions on them.     

The counseling assignment problem

A disposition index, DI, which provides information about each possible placement to be considered in a personnel classification situation is discussed. The index is readily computed by machine methods and can be used by counselors required to make assignments. The use of the disposition index provides an adequate approximation to optimal solutions obtained by other methods.This report is based on work done under ARDC Project No. 7702, Task No. 17051, in support of the research and development program of the Air Force Personnel and Training Research Center, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Permission is granted for reproduction, translation, publication, use, and disposal in whole and in part by or for the United States Government.     

The futures of physicians: Agency and autonomy reconsidered

The corporatization of U.S. health care has directed cost containment efforts toward scrutinizing the clinical decisions of physicians. This stimulated a variety of new utilization management interventions, particularly in hospital and managed care settings. Recent changes in fee-for-service medicine and physicians' traditional agency relationships with patients, purchasers, and insurers are examined here. New information systems monitoring of physician ordering behavior has already begun to impact on physician autonomy and the relationship of physicians to provider organizations in both for-profit and ‘not-for-profit’ sectors. As managed care practice settings proliferate, serious ethical questions will be raised about agency relationships with patients. This article examines health system dynamics altering the historical agency relationship between the physician and patient and eroding the traditional autonomy of the medical profession in the United States. The corporatization of medicine and the accompanying information systems monitoring of physician productivity is seen to account of such change, now posing serious ethical dilemmas.     

The role of phonology in a letter detection task

In two experiments, we investigated whether onsets and rimes have a role in the processing of written English. In both experiments, participants detected letter targets (e.g., t) in nonwords like vult faster than in nonwords like vust. This finding is consistent with Selkirk's (1982) view that sonorants (e.g., the /l/ of vult) cohere with preceding short vowels and are part of the vowel nucleus. In contrast, the /t/ of vust is part of the syllable's coda st and so is harder to isolate. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the time required for one to detect single-member codas following vowel digraphs (e.g., the t in veet) was similar to the time to detect the same target letter following a postvocalic sonorant (e.g., the t in vult). No evidence was found for onsets. The results provide support for a phonological organization among letters of printed rimes.     

Decision-making and the Backward Induction Argument

The traditional form of the backward induction argument, which concludes that two initially rational agents would always defect, relies on the assumption that they believe they will be rational in later rounds. Philip Pettit and Robert Sugden have argued, however, that this assumption is unjustified. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the argument without using this assumption. The formulation offered concludes that two initially rational agents would decide to always defect, and relies only on the weaker assumption that they do not believe they will not be rational in later rounds. The argument employs the idea that decisions justify revocable presumptions about behavior.