Objective Bayesianism,Bayesian conditionalisation and voluntarism

Objective Bayesianism has been criticised on the grounds that objective Bayesian updating, which on a finite outcome space appeals to the maximum entropy principle, differs from Bayesian conditionalisation. The main task of this paper is to show that this objection backfires: the difference between the two forms of updating reflects negatively on Bayesian conditionalisation rather than on objective Bayesian updating. The paper also reviews some existing criticisms and justifications of conditionalisation, arguing in particular that the diachronic Dutch book justification fails because diachronic Dutch book arguments are subject to a reductio: in certain circumstances one can Dutch book an agent however she changes her degrees of belief. One may also criticise objective Bayesianism on the grounds that its norms are not compulsory but voluntary, the result of a stance. It is argued that this second objection also misses the mark, since objective Bayesian norms are tied up in the very notion of degrees of belief.     

Body-image disturbances in bulimia nervosa: influences of actual body size

This study evaluated body-image distortion and ideal body-size preferences in 423 nonbulimic women and 108 bulimics. Analyses of covariance were utilized to compare the bulimic and nonbulimic groups on measures of current and ideal body size. Weight was used as a covariate to evaluate the influence of actual body size on perception of current body size and selection of ideal body size. Bulimics chose current body sizes that were significantly larger than those picked by nonbulimics regardless of actual body size. Bulimics also chose thinner ideal body sizes than did nonbulimics, regardless of actual body size. These results suggest that body-image distortion and extreme preference for thinness are a fundamental characteristic of bulimia nervosa. These results were discussed in terms of how perception of a large body size and preference for a very thin body size might interact to produce a high degree of dissatisfaction and overconcern with body size in bulimia nervosa.     

Providing help and desired relationship type as determinants of changes in moods and self-evaluations

Observed in 2 initial studies was converging evidence that helping improves the helpers' moods and self-evaluations. In these studies Ss induced to help showed improved moods and self-evaluations relative to Ss not given an opportunity to help. A 3rd study examined the moderating effects of desired relationship type on reactions to having helped. In this study Ss were led to desire either a communal or an exchange relationship with another. They then helped the other or were not allowed to help. Among Ss led to desire a communal relationship, but not among those led to desire an exchange relationship, helping was associated with greater improvements in moods than not helping. Helping tended to improve self-evaluations regardless of desired relationship type. However, this effect reached statistical significance only among subjects led to desire a communal relationship.     

Nontreatment decisions for severely compromised newborns

The authors draw on Kipnis' experiences in the clinical presentation of ethical problems arising in a newborn intensive care unit to analyze substantive criteria for decisions to stop life prolonging treatment and to determine the limits of parental authority to decide for nontreatment. They identify three decisions--treatment obligatory, treatment discretionary, and nontreatment obligatory--and apply the criteria of patient burdens and capability for a subjectively valuable life to each. Kipnis and Williamson consider parental authority to be a custodial role which should be assumed by others if the parents are unable or unwilling to secure for the child a subjectively valuable life.     

Value Options and The Counseling Relationship

The contemporary literature of counseling psychology gives some evidence of the abandonment of the “neutrality” of permissiveness concerning the outcomes of counseling in favor of the search for the “good” life of full humanity. But now, we are faced with the most complex query as to the nature of the “good.” And we open Pandora's box to face not one single criterion of the good life, but a diversity of options available, hopefully, for “rational” choice by each adolescent. Without assuming that each student does cognitively choose from the array of options, the reader is led to identify and appraise eight of the many alternative hierarchies or complexes of value systems that, in the past, human beings have forged and adopted as the source and rationale of their daily behavior.     

Physical illness and symptoms of depression among elderly outpatients.

Elderly outpatients were assessed to clarify relations between symptoms of depression and physical illness, disability, pain, and selected psychosocial variables. Three types of assessments were made: (a) medical evaluations by physicians, (b) self-reported symptoms of depression and physical health, and (c) demographic and psychosocial data relating to participants' life circumstances. Both objective (physician-rated illness symptoms) and subjective (self-reported health, activity restriction, and use of pain medications) indicators of health accounted for independent variance in symptoms of depression. After controlling for these factors, additional variance was explained by health-related concerns (e.g., health care expenses, service needs), social support, and "other worries" (e.g., feeling useless, becoming a burden to others).     

CONTEXTUALISM, SUBJECT-SENSITIVE INVARIANTISM AND KNOWLEDGE OF KNOWLEDGE

§I schematizes the evidence for an understanding of 'know' and of other terms of epistemic appraisal that embodies contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism, and distinguishes between those two approaches. §II argues that although the cases for contextualism and sensitive invariantism rely on a principle of charity in the interpretation of epistemic claims, neither approach satisfies charity fully, since both attribute meta-linguistic errors to speakers. §III provides an equally charitable anti-sceptical insensitive invariantist explanation of much of the same evidence as the result of psychological bias caused by salience effects. §IV suggests that the explanation appears to have implausible consequences about practical reasoning, but also that applications of contextualism or sensitive invariantism to the problem of scepticism have such consequences. §V argues that the inevitable difference between appropriateness and knowledge of appropriateness in practical reasoning, closely related to the difference between knowledge and knowledge of knowledge, explains the apparent implausibility.