Kant, Nonaccidentalness and the Availability of Moral Worth

Contemporary Kantians who defend Kant's view of the superiority of the sense of duty as a form of motivation appeal to various ideas. Some say, if only implicitly, that the sense of duty is always ``available' to an agent, when she has a moral obligation. Some, like Barbara Herman, say that the sense of duty provides a ``nonaccidental' connection between an agent's motivation and the act's rightness. In this paper I show that the ``availability' and ``nonaccidentalness' arguments are in tension with one another. And the ``availability' idea, although certainly supported by some passages in Kant himself, is also clearly denied in other passages. My conclusion is that Kantians will need to abandon either availability or nonaccidentalness if they wish to have a consistent set of views about the sense of duty.     

God as Spirit—and Natural Science

The biblical sentence "God is Spirit" (John 4:24) occasioned the development of the Christian doctrine about God as Spirit. But since patristic times "spirit" was interpreted in the sense of Nus, which rather means "intellect." The biblical concept of spirit (pneuma), however, has its root meaning in referring to "air in movement," as in breath or storm. The similar concept of pneuma in Stoic philosophy has become the "immediate precursor" (Max Jammer) of the field concept in modern physics, so that the conclusion is suggested that God is spirit as something like a field of force rather than as intellect. This essay argues for such a conception by relating the divine eternity and immensity to the concepts of space and time, the basic requirements of any physical field. God's eternity and immensity are interpreted in terms of undivided infinite space (and time) which is presupposed in all concepts of parts of space or time (or space-time), therefore in all mathematical and physical measurement.     

Critical thinking in North America: A new theory of knowledge,learning, and literacy

The pace of change in the world is accelerating, yet educational institutions have not kept pace. Indeed, schools have historically been the most static of social institutions, uncritically passing down from generation to generation outmoded didactic, lecture-and-drill-based, models of instruction. Predictable results follow. Students, on the whole, do not learn how to work by, or think for, themselves. They do not learn how to gather, analyze, synthesize and assess information. They do not learn how to analyze the diverse logic of the questions and problems they face and hence how to adjust their thinking to those problems. They do not learn how to enter sympathetically into the thinking of others, nor how to deal rationally with conflicting points of view. They do not learn to become critical readers, writers, speakers and listeners. They do not learn how to use their native languages clearly, precisely, or persuasively. They do not, therefore, become literate, in the proper sense of the word. Neither do they gain much in the way of genuine knowledge since, for the most part, they could not explain the basis for what they believe. They would be hard pressed to explain, for example, which of their beliefs were based on rational assent and which on simple conformity to what they have been told. They have little sense as to how they might critically analyze their own experience, or identify national or group bias in their own thinking. They are much more apt to learn on the basis of irrational than rational modes of thought. They lack the traits of mind of a genuinely educated person: intellectual humility, courage, integrity, perseverance, and faith in reason.Happily, there is a movement in education today striving to address these problems in a global way, with strategies and materials for the modification of instruction at all levels of education. At its foundation is an emerging new theory of knowledge, learning, and literacy, one which recognizes the centrality of independent critical thinking to all substantial learning, one which recognizes that higher-order, multilogical thinking is as important to childhood as to adult learning, and as important to foundational learning in monological as in multilogical disciplines. This educational reform movement is not proposing an educational miracle cure, for its leading proponents recognize that many social and historical forces must come together before the ideals of the critical thinking movement will become a full academic reality. Schools do not exist in a social vacuum. To the extent that the broader society is uncritical so, on the whole, will be society's schools. Nevertheless, the social conditions necessary for fundamental changes in schooling are increasingly apparent. The pressure for fundamental change is growing. Whether and to what extent these needed basic changes will be delayed or side-tracked, thus requiring new periodic resurgences of this movement, with new, more elaborate articulations of its ideals, goals, and methods — only time will tell.     

Common sense as an ingredient of the self and the community

The new situation in Europe, as exemplified in Germany, calls for a common consciousness, one traditionally characterized as sensus communis or common sense. Kant organized his ruminations on common sense — specifically, the logical common sense — around three maxims: enlightenment, the extended way of thinking and the consistent way of thinking. These are here described with an eye to their consequences for the issues of identity, community and pedagogy.     

Making life easier with effort: Basic findings and applied research on response effort

Early basic research showed that increases in required response effort (or force) produced effects that resembled those produced by punishment. A recent study by Alling and Poling determined some subtle differences between the two behavior-change strategies, but also confirmed that increasing required effort is an effective response-reduction procedure with enduring effects. In this paper we summarize basic research on response effort and explore the role of effort in diverse applied areas including deceleration of aberrant behavior, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oral habits, health care appointment keeping, littering, indexes of functional disability, and problem solving. We conclude that renewed interest in response effort as an independent variable is justified because of its potent effects and because the political constraints imposed on punishment- and reinforcement-based procedures have yet to be imposed on procedures that entail manipulations of response effort.     

The Sense of Agency and the Search for a Narrative in Acute Psychosis

The search for a narrative in acute psychosis exists but the result of this search can be insufficient because the stories available do not sufficiently capture the pre-narrative quality of personal experience, and hence the sense of agency may be diminished. The context of reflexivity is lost when a subjugating story blocks an individual off from making a choice from among a multiplicity of stories. Psychosis can also be an escape in order to maintain a sense of agency. When the patient has trouble in creating meaning through narrative action, the aim of therapy and treatment is to open a channel through which the pre-narrative quality of life can become narrated, to create a multiplicity of stories, and so offer the possibility of choice in the construction of a narrative identity.     

Jeopardy Not Bonus Status for African American Women in the Work Force: Why Does the Myth of Advantage Persist?

African American women in the United States have a long history of employment outside of their homes. Their experiences are unique from other groups of majority and minority men and women due to the interaction of race, gender, and class. Despite long-standing and continuing struggles against discrimination, harassment, low pay, tokenism, and stereotypes, a myth that African American women enjoy a bonus or advantaged status in the work force has developed and persisted. In this article, Black women's work force experiences are examined from a social constructionist framework, misperceptions of Black women are critiqued, explanations are developed that explain the unique status of African American women and recommendations are proposed to eradicate the discrimination and marginal status that Black women have endured in the work force.     

May the force be with you

This paper is a critical assessment of argumentum ad baculum, or appeal to force. Its principal contention is that, contrary to common opinion, there is no general fallacy of ad baculum. Most real-life ad baculums are, in fact, fairly strong. A basic logical form for reconstructed ad baculums is proposed, and a number of heterodoxical conclusions are also advanced and argued for. They include that ad baculum is not necessarily a prudential argument, that ad baculum need not involve force, violence, or threats, and that one can argue ad baculum to oneself. The starting point of the paper, however, is a critical evaluation of three ad baculums from the exercise sets of Irving Copi's well-known Introduction to Logic.     

Confirmation of linear system theory prediction: Rate of change of Herrnstein's kappa as a function of response-force requirement

Four human subjects worked on all combinations of five variable-interval schedules and five reinforcer magnitudes (¢/reinforcer) in each of two phases of the experiment. In one phase the force requirement on the operandum was low (1 or 11 N) and in the other it was high (25 or 146 N). Estimates of Herrnstein's κ were obtained at each reinforcer magnitude. The results were: (1) response rate was more sensitive to changes in reinforcement rate at the high than at the low force requirement, (2) κ increased from the beginning to the end of the magnitude range for all subjects at both force requirements, (3) the reciprocal of κ was a linear function of the reciprocal of reinforcer magnitude for seven of the eight data sets, and (4) the rate of change of κ was greater at the high than at the low force requirement by an order of magnitude or more. The second and third findings confirm predictions made by linear system theory, and replicate the results of an earlier experiment (McDowell & Wood, 1984). The fourth finding confirms a further prediction of the theory and supports the theory's interpretation of conflicting data on the constancy of Herrnstein's κ.