Fitting Attitudes, Welfare, and Time

Chris Heathwood has recently put forward a novel and ingenious argument against the view that intrinsic value is analyzable in terms of fitting attitudes. According to Heathwood, this view holds water only if the related but distinct concept of welfare—intrinsic value for a person—can be analyzed in terms of fitting attitudes too. Moreover, he argues against such an analysis of welfare by appealing to the rationality of our bias towards the future. In this paper, I argue that so long as we keep the tenses and the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction right, the fitting-attitudes analysis of welfare can be shown to survive Heathwood’s criticism.

Philosophy, Polemics, Education

In this paper I wish to comment upon the use of polemical argument in philosophy of education and education. Like Foucault, I believe that a whole morality is at stake because polemical argument obfuscates the search for truth at the expense of truth and the other’s veracity, integrity and dignity. The use of polemics is illustrated by two arguments. The first general argument is taken from an attack upon Albert Camus by the British writer Colin Wilson. The second more particular example is taken from attacks in New Zealand by the State Department of Education upon the educational ideas of the novelist and educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Finally I discuss how polemics might be countered in education.

What we know now that we didn’t know then: reply to critics of <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Age of Meaning</Emphasis>

Author’s response to critical essays by Brian Weatherson, Alex Byrne, and Stephen Yablo on Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 2 The Age of Meaning     

排除“每个人都优于平均水平”机制影响的自我提升研究

采用优于平均效应、自我服务归因偏向和内隐测验三种方法测量中国大学生的自我提升,并在前两种方法中考虑了EBTA机制的影响,以探讨中国人的自我提升动机及其表现形式。结果发现：EBTA机制影响显著;排除EBTA机制的影响后,大学生依然存在优于平均效应和自我服务归因偏向;大学生存在内隐自我提升值;内隐自我提升值与外显自我提升值之间存在显著正相关。     

Nozick's experience machine is dead,long live the experience machine!

Robert Nozick's experience machine thought experiment (Nozick's scenario) is widely used as the basis for a “knockdown” argument against all internalist mental state theories of well-being. Recently, however, it has been convincingly argued that Nozick's scenario should not be used in this way because it elicits judgments marred by status quo bias and other irrelevant factors. These arguments all include alternate experience machine thought experiments, but these scenarios also elicit judgments marred by status quo bias and other irrelevant factors. In this paper, several experiments are conducted in order to create and test a relatively bias-free experience machine scenario. It is argued that if an experience machine thought experiment is used to evaluate internalist mental state theories of well-being, then this relatively bias-free scenario should be used over any of the existing scenarios. Unlike the existing experience machine scenarios, when this new scenario is used to assess internalist mental state theories of well-being, it does not provide strong evidence to refute or endorse them.     

汉语第三人称单数代词对人物性别判定的影响

采用启动范式考察汉语第三人称单数代词对人物性别判定的影响.实验l发现,“他”导致被试更多地将人物判定为男性,“她”使被试产生更多的女性意象,中性句引起的偏差较小.PMB程度无性别差异.实验2表明,“他”导致被试更多地将中性人物判定为男性,将部分女性误判为男性.     

The sacramental nature of peacemaking rituals: a case for a sacramental spirituality of reconciliation

South African scholar and peace activist John de Gruchy sees a close relationship between sacraments and peacemaking processes. Even though a Protestant, he calls the Church a sacramental community and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) a ‘civic sacrament’. This raises the question of the relationship between processes and rituals of peacemaking and sacramentality. Moreover, how does reconciliation, as a core doctrine of Christian theology, relate to sacramentality and peacemaking efforts in society? Is reconciliation sacramental? Hans Boersma’s sacramental ontology provides a theological basis for an affirmative answer. Furthermore, the notion of Christ (and the Church) as primal sacrament(s) (Semmelroth, Schillebeeckx) gives a further basis to see processes of peacemaking as sacramental. The article argues for a sacramental spirituality of reconciliation (Schreiter). However, applying the arguments to two concrete cases, the TRC and the twinning of Coventry and Dresden, shows some difficulties in claiming sacramental status for reconciliation efforts.     

Measuring Processing Fluency: One versus Five Items

While there is an ample amount of consumer behavior research that recruits processing fluency as an explanatory construct, the question how to best measure the fluency experience has received little attention. Therefore, there is a lack of consistency in measuring the construct, particularly with regard to the use of single‐item versus multi‐item measures. The current research, thus, aims to investigate how processing fluency can be consistently measured across different experimental fluency manipulations and which type of measure has the highest validity. Based on classic scale development procedures, we propose a reliable and valid multi‐item measure and compare this measure against a single‐item measure in terms of predictive validity. We show that both measures mediate the effect of five established fluency manipulations and that the single‐item measure is sufficient. In addition to providing a measure for future research that can be adapted to different empirical settings, we provide empirical evidence on the replicability of fluency effects and on the theoretical conjecture that people have a uniform fluency experience across different manipulations of fluency.