What is ‘mental action’?

There has been a resurgence of interest lately within the philosophy of mind and action in the category of mental action. Against this background, the present paper aims to question the very possibility, or at least the theoretical significance, of teasing apart mental and bodily acts. After raising some doubts over the viability of various possible ways of drawing the mental-act–bodily-act distinction, the paper draws some lessons from debates over embodied cognition which, arguably, further undermine the credibility of the distinction. The insignificance of the distinction is demonstrated in part by showing how the focus on “inner” acts hampers fruitful discussion of Galen Strawson’s skepticism of mental agency. Finally, the possibility is discussed that a distinction between covert and overt action should supplant the one between mental and bodily action.     

竞争和合作对学龄前儿童分配模式的影响:心理理论和抑制控制的作用

研究考察在双方贡献不相等时,3~6岁儿童分配模式的发展趋势及其原因。98名儿童在竞争或合作情境下和玩偶进行钓鱼游戏,然后对6枚冰箱贴进行分配。结果发现5~6岁儿童比3~4岁儿童进行平均分配的比例更高,一级心理理论和抑制控制能力完全中介了年龄的效应。和竞争情境相比,合作情境促进儿童进行平均分配,同时情境调节了抑制控制对分配模式的影响。研究表明一级心理理论和抑制控制能力的发展能够解释学龄前儿童分配模式的变化。     

Age differences in moral judgment: Older adults are more deontological than younger adults

In 2 studies, an older and a younger age group morally evaluated dilemmas contrasting a deontological judgment (do not harm others) against a utilitarian judgment (do what is best for the majority). Previous research suggests that deontological moral judgments are often underpinned by affective reactions and utilitarian moral judgments by deliberative thinking. Separately, research on the psychology of aging has shown that affect plays a more prominent role in the judgments and decision making of older (vs. younger) adults. Yet age remains a largely overlooked factor in moral judgment research. Here, we therefore investigated whether older adults would make more deontological judgments on the basis of experiencing different affective reactions to moral dilemmas as compared with younger adults. Results from 2 experiments indicated that older adults made significantly more deontological moral judgments. Mediation analyses revealed that the relationship between age and making more deontological moral judgments is partly explained by older adults exhibiting significantly more negative affective reactions and having more morally idealistic beliefs as compared with younger adults.     

Perceptual precision

The standard view in philosophy of mind is that the way to understand the difference between perception and misperception is in terms of accuracy. On this view, perception is accurate while misperception is inaccurate. However, there is some evidence (albeit controversial evidence) that perceptual experience actually involves widespread inaccuracy. I add to that evidence in the paper. Then I point toward a way of understanding the difference between perception and misperception, not in terms of accuracy alone, but in terms of precision. That is, I argue that perceptual experience is designed to enable more fine-grained discrimination among the properties that are most useful for action, even if that involves inaccuracy. The view in this paper motivates a new account of illusion, on which illusions are imprecise as well as inaccurate. I call this the Precision Account of Illusion.     

直觉还是推理,道德判断如何形成?

道德判断形成的机制一直存在争议,许多研究者通过实证研究来探索诸因素对道德判断的影响,这有助于理清不同因素的作用,但却难以构建道德判断形成的理论框架。文章系统性地回顾和总结了道德判断形成的五个经典理论模型及其相关理论,并结合实证研究的成果梳理了道德判断形成中理性、情绪、认知、直觉和推理之间的关系。基于此,构建了以直觉和推理为基本路径,基于规则的认知和情绪为调节因素的道德判断形成的理论框架。现有的理论模型和实证研究在该框架下均可以的得到较好的解释。同时,根据该框架,建议未来的实证研究中应当注重对影响因素的分类以及对实验情景的控制。     

Is There Social Consensus Regarding Researcher Conflicts of Interest?

Consensus around what constitutes researcher conflicts of interest (COIs) and awareness of their influence on our research are two critical steps in ensuring the integrity of our science. In this research, data were collected from individual scholars via 2 surveys 5 years apart and from journals and associations to examine the level of social consensus and moral awareness among scholars, journals, and associations regarding researcher COIs. Although we observed increases in level of social consensus and moral awareness between 2012 and 2017, results still revealed limited agreement about what relationships constitute a COI and limited awareness about the presence of and the ethical issues surrounding COIs. Although all journals and associations we examined supported COI disclosure, most did not provide researchers with detailed COI-related information, guidance, or disclosure tools. Limited social consensus and moral awareness regarding COIs is problematic because it inhibits the recognition, disclosure, and management of COIs and limits ethical decision making. We need to continue and enhance discussions about COIs and aim to create consensus and awareness where we do not have it with the goal of reducing potential scientific misconduct related to COIs.     

Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment: Ethically Equivalent?

Withholding and withdrawing treatment are widely regarded as ethically equivalent in medical guidelines and ethics literature. Health care personnel, however, widely perceive moral differences between withholding and withdrawing. The proponents of equivalence argue that any perceived difference can be explained in terms of cognitive biases and flawed reasoning. Thus, policymakers should clear away any resistance to accept the equivalence stance by moral education. To embark on such a campaign of changing attitudes, we need to be convinced that the ethical analysis is correct. Is it? In this article, I take a closer look at the moral relation between withholding and withdrawing. My conclusion is that withholding and withdrawing are not in general ethically equivalent. Thus, medical guidelines should be rewritten, and rather than being “educated” away from their sound judgments, medical professionals and patients should have nuanced medico-ethical discussions regarding withholding and withdrawing treatment.     

道德概念具身隐喻及其影响因素：来自元分析的证据

采用元分析技术探讨道德概念具身隐喻及其影响因素。通过文献检索和筛选, 共有65篇文献153个独立样本符合元分析标准( N = 8659)。元分析结果显示, 道德概念具身隐喻的始源域与目标域存在中等程度正相关(r = 0.34); 调节效应检验表明, 道德概念具身隐喻受文化背景和隐喻维度的影响, 但不受隐喻映射方向、研究范式和感觉通道的影响。以上研究结果表明, 道德概念具身隐喻具有心理现实性, 并且受文化背景和隐喻维度的调节, 具体而言, 东方文化背景下个体的道德概念具身隐喻更强, 道德概念与空间维度和大小维度的隐喻联结程度更高。     

Mind perception of God in Japanese children

There is a theoretical debate regarding whether children represent God with reference to a human. Most previous studies have assessed this issue focusing on knowledge/omniscience in western children. This study used a theoretical framework characterising mental capacities in terms of motivational/emotional (experience) and cognitive (agency) mental capacities and tested whether Japanese children discriminated between God, a human, a baby and an invisible agent according to these capacities. Three‐ to 6‐year‐old children were asked about the experience and agency of the agents. The results revealed that children discriminated God from a human in terms of mental capacities including experience and agency in 3‐year‐old children. On the other hand, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children, but not 3‐year‐old children, discriminated a human from a baby and an invisible person. The results suggest that the Japanese children's representations of God differed from their representation of a human during preschool years.     

Teaching a perspective‐taking component skill to children with autism in the natural environment

We evaluated procedures for teaching three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder the perspective‐taking component skill of tacting what others are sensing across all five senses: see, taste, feel, hear, and smell. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, we evaluated a training package consisting of multiple exemplar training, reinforcement, and error correction. The treatment package was implemented in the natural environment and was effective for teaching participants to tact what others sensed. Generalization across untrained stimuli and people was observed from baseline to posttraining for all participants. We discuss how this component skill may be related to teaching further skills related to perspective taking such as tacting what others know, predicting future behavior based upon one's beliefs, and creating false beliefs in others for the purpose of adaptive deceptive behaviors such as keeping secrets, surprises, and bluffing during games.