Darwin's lost theory and its implications for the 21st century

This paper reports the reconstruction of the long ignored “second half” or human level completion for Darwin's theory of evolution. Pursuing the striking contradictions between what has been attributed to Darwin by his neo‐Darwinian and sociobiological heirs and what he actually said, in ignored sections of The Descent of Man and Darwin's long unpublished notebooks it uncovers a three‐level theory of the moral agent that foreshadows the emergence of 20th century social science and the late 20th century rise of the fields of systems science and humanistic psychology. Implications for a joint venture of natural science and social science in the completion of the humanistic and action‐oriented theory of evolution called for by the species‐threatening challenges of the 21st century are considered.     

The role of epistemic motivation in individuals’ response to decision complexity

Integrating findings on the effects of more alternatives with findings on the effects of more attributes, we offer a motivational decision-making model, suggesting that epistemic motivation moderates individuals’ responses to complex information. Study 1 empirically investigated the shared essence of four conceptualizations of epistemic motivation, further distinguishing it from the maximizing/satisficing motivation. A series of experiments indicate that epistemic motivation moderates the effect of complex information on one’s discomfort with a decision (Studies 2–4) and on the tendency to implement one’s choice in action (Study 3). Taken together, our findings indicate that individuals with low epistemic motivation experience more discomfort and are less likely to implement their decision when faced with complex information whereas those high on epistemic motivation portray a weaker or even an opposite effect. The consistent findings across conceptualizations (dispositional Need-for-Cognitive-Closure and manipulated Openness vs. Conservation values) indicate the robustness of the findings and the important role of epistemic motivation in complex decisions.     

What Justification Could Not Be

I begin by asking the meta-epistemological question, 'What is justification?', analogous to the meta-ethical question, 'What is rightness?' I introduce the possibility of non-cognitivist, naturalist, non-naturalist, and eliminativist answers in meta-epistemology,corresponding to those in meta-ethics. I devote special attention to the naturalistic hypothesis that epistemic justification is identical to probability, showing its antecedent plausibility. I argue that despite this plausibility, justification cannot be identical with probability, under the standard interpretation of the probability calculus, for the simple reason that justification can increase indefinitely but probability cannot. I then propose an alternative model for prima facie justification, based on an analogy with Ross's account of prima facie obligation, arguing that this model illuminates the differences between justification and probability and, given the plausible assumption of epistemic pluralism, explains them as well.     

伦理治理:医疗卫生机构的角色和责任

在推进“健康中国”战略的大环境下,医疗卫生机构承担着服务全民健康的重大职责。然而,当前医疗卫生实践面临着诸多伦理问题,其中一个关键原因在于医疗卫生机构尚缺乏相应的伦理规约。从“机构伦理”的视角出发,探讨医疗卫生机构的伦理治理。在从理论角度梳理医疗卫生机构面临的伦理问题和挑战的基础上,探讨医疗卫生机构同时作为“治理主体”和“治理对象”应当承担的道德责任,以期为探讨医疗卫生机构伦理提供一个可能的视角。     

On the general argument against internalism

I respond to John Greco’s argument that all forms of internalism in epistemology are either false or uninteresting. The paper divides into two sections. First, I explain precisely what internalists and externalists in epistemology disagree over. This puts us in a position to assess whether Greco’s argument succeeds. Second, I present Greco’s argument and offer two objections.     

Luck and Free Will

This essay sketches a problem about luck for typical incompatibilist views of free will posed in Alfred Mele, Free Will and Luck (2006), and examines recent reactions to that problem. Reactions featuring appeals to agent causation receive special attention. Because the problem is focused on decision making, the control that agents have over what they decide is a central topic. Other topics discussed include the nature of lucky action and differences between directly and indirectly free actions.     

行为金融学与心理学

由于理性经济人假设与实际的偏差,经典现代金融学遇到了一些被称为“未解之谜”的现实问题。行为金融学是从人们的实际决策行为出发来研究和解释金融市场的相关问题。因此,心理学的研究成果就成为行为金融学研究必不可少的基础。与投资者信念、偏好以及决策相关的情感心理学、认知心理学和社会心理学的研究成果在行为金融学各领域得到了广泛的应用。金融学与心理学两个领域的密切合作将推动行为金融学的进一步发展。     

A Radical Notion of EmbeddednessA Logically Necessary Precondition for Agency and Self-Awareness

The aim of this essay is to establish the logically necessary preconditions for the existence of self-awareness in an artificial or a natural agent. It examines the terms agent , situated , embodied , embedded , and representation as employed ubiquitously in cognitive science, attempting to clarify their meaning and the limits of their use. It discusses the minimal conditions for an agent's environment constituting a 'world' and rejects most, though not all, types of virtual world. It argues that to qualify as genuinely situated an agent should function in real time within the dynamic world we inhabit, or some close simulacrum of it. It shows that embodied agents will possess or evolve local coordinate systems, or points of view, locating, identifying, and interacting with objects relative to their current position in space-time, and it discusses various types of embodiment, arguing that most current situated and embodied systems are too limited to be candidates for even the most minimal claim to self-identity. It argues that a truly autonomous agent has to be active in its participation with the world, able to synthesize and order its internal representations from its own point of view, and that to do this effectively the agent will have to be embedded. To this end it proposes a six-point definition of embeddedness. Ultimately it argues for a philosophical-cum-cognitive-science model of the self that satisfies essential elements of both sets of definitions of the term.     

Speaking Your Mind: Large Inarticulateness Constitutional and Circumstantial

When someone is asked to speak his mind, it is sometimes possible for him to furnish what his utterance appears to have omitted. In such cases we might say that he had a mind to speak. Sometimes, however, the opposite is true. Asked to speak his mind, our speaker finds that he has no mind to speak. When it is possible to speak one's mind and when not is largely determined by the kinds of beings we are and by the kinds of resources we are able to draw upon. In either case, not speaking one's mind is leaving something out whose articulation would or could matter for the purposes for which one was speaking in the first place. Inarticulation is no fleetingly contingent and peripheral phenomenon in human thinking and discourse. It is a substantial and dominant commonplace. In Part One I attempt to say something about what it is about the human agent that makes inarticulateness so rife. In Part Two, I consider various strategies for making the unarticulated explicit, and certain constraints on such processes. I shall suggest, among other things, that standard treatments of enthymematic reconstruction are fundamentally misconceived.