Reflective equilibrium and moral objectivity

Ever since the introduction of reflective equilibrium in ethics, it has been argued that reflective equilibrium either leads to moral relativism, or that it turns out to be a form of intuitionism in disguise. Despite these criticisms, reflective equilibrium remains the most dominant method of moral justification in ethics. In this paper, I therefore critically examine the most recent attempts to defend the method of reflective equilibrium against these objections. Defenders of reflective equilibrium typically respond to the objections by saying that either reflective equilibrium can in fact safeguard moral objectivity or alternatively, even if it cannot, that there simply are no reasonable alternatives. In this paper, I take issue with both responses. First, I argue that given the non-foundationalist aspirations of reflective equilibrium, moral objectivity cannot be maintained. Second, I argue that reflective equilibrium is not the only game in town once intuitionism has been discarded. I argue that given their own normative ambitions, combined with their rejection of intuitionism, proponents of reflective equilibrium have reason to take alternative methods of moral justification, and more specifically transcendental arguments, more seriously than they have done so far. I end by sketching the outlines of what this alternative methodology might look like.     

Early Positive Information Impacts Final Evaluations: No Deliberation‐Without‐Attention Effect and a Test of a Dynamic Judgment Model

Evaluation judgments were affected by information order and not by subsequent unconscious versus conscious deliberation. In three experiments, we examined the influence of early positive information on final evaluations of four objects. Based on a task analysis, we predicted primacy effects in judgments in a sequential data acquisition task. Thinking periods following presentation were used to manipulate conscious or unconscious processing. In all three studies, we found no effects of thinking manipulations but instead found reliable order effects. We developed and tested an online judgment model on the basis of the belief updating model of Hogarth and Einhorn. The model accounted for large proportion of the individual level variability, and model comparison tests supported the presence of a primacy effect. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Judgment of Abortion: A Black-Sheep Effect in a Catholic Sheepfold

Abstract

French Catholic participants (N = 340) with high or low religious identification read 1 of 8 scenarios presented as an interview with a female target 2 months after she had had an abortion. The experimental device varied situational pressure (pressure vs. no pressure), the target's religious social identity (Catholic vs. neutral), and the consequences of abortion for the target (positive vs. negative). The participants then rated the acceptability of the target's decision. The participants judged abortion more negatively in the no-pressure condition. Moreover, the participants with high religious identification judged abortion more negatively than did those with low religious identification. In partial support of a black-sheep effect, the participants with high religious identification judged the Catholic target more negatively than they judged the neutral one in some conditions (pressure, negative consequences). In other conditions (no pressure, both positive and negative consequences), the participants with low religious identification judged the Catholic target more positively than they judged the neutral one.     

Extreme judgments depend on the expectation of following judgments: A calibration analysis

Objectives

Judges avoid extreme judgments in the beginning of evaluation sequences. The calibration hypothesis attributes this bias to judges’ need to preserve their judgmental degrees of freedom. It follows that the expectation of a sequence leads to avoiding extreme judgments in the beginning. Thus, judges may make extreme judgments if they expect only one performance but should avoid extreme judgments if they expect a sequence.

Design

A between-group design was used.

Method

One experimental group (n = 21) expected to judge only one gymnastics performance whereas the other group (n = 20) expected to judge a sequence of performances. Both groups then judged only one identical performance.

Results

Groups differed significantly in the frequency of extreme judgments. Participants expecting one performance used extreme judgment categories more often; participants expecting a series avoided extreme judgments.

Conclusion

The results support calibration processes in sequential judgments. The specification of the underlying process will allow testing possible interventions to avoid serial position biases in serial evaluations in the future.     

What difference reveals about similarity

Detecting that two images are different is faster for highly dissimilar images than for highly similar images. Paradoxically, we showed that the reverse occurs when people are asked to describe how two images differ--that is, to state a difference between two images. Following structure-mapping theory, we propose that this disassociation arises from the multistage nature of the comparison process. Detecting that two images are different can be done in the initial (local-matching) stage, but only for pairs with low overlap; thus, "different" responses are faster for low-similarity than for high-similarity pairs. In contrast, identifying a specific difference generally requires a full structural alignment of the two images, and this alignment process is faster for high-similarity pairs. We described four experiments that demonstrate this dissociation and show that the results can be simulated using the Structure-Mapping Engine. These results pose a significant challenge for nonstructural accounts of similarity comparison and suggest that structural alignment processes play a significant role in visual comparison.     

Disjunction Between Probability and Verdict in Juror Decision Making

Although the law assumes a close relation between the probability that a defendant committed the act in question and the ensuing verdict of the jurors, prior research has shown this assumption to be often violated. We present five experiments designed to show that factors that influence probability also influence verdict, but other factors are capable of directly producing changes in verdict without affecting probability. In Experiment 1, we replicated the Wells Effect; scenarios generating the same probability that the Blue Bus Company was to blame for the same accident, nevertheless, generated significantly different likelihoods of finding the defendant liable. In Experiment 2, we showed that equally diagnostic affirmative and negative evidence had differential effects on mock jurors' probability estimates and verdicts. In Experiment 3, we showed that a completely nondiagnostic witness, who either implicates the same bus company or a different bus company as did a diagnostic witness, significantly influenced mock jurors' verdicts. However, the nondiagnostic witness did not change the probability that the Blue Bus Company was responsible for the accident. In Experiment 4, we demonstrated that base rate and witness reliability information resulted in very similar probability estimates but radically different verdicts. In Experiment 5, we showed that a change in the diagnosticity of the evidence influenced both probability and verdict with the former mediating differences in the later. Because probability is only one of the several determinants of the verdict, the two dependent variables are not as closely related as the law presumes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hypercorrection of high confidence errors: Prior testing both enhances delayed performance and blocks the return of the errors

How people correct their mistakes and sustain those corrections over time is a problem of central interest to education. It might be thought that the erroneous beliefs that people hold with high confidence would be especially difficult to correct. Interestingly, people correct these high confidence errors more easily than low confidence errors, a phenomenon known as the ‘hypercorrection effect’. Unfortunately, though, with a delay in testing there is a tendency for some of these high confidence errors to reemerge – a finding with serious consequences for education. This study investigated the effect of intervening a test immediately after corrective feedback on preventing the return of the errors. It also investigated processing differences between prevention-focused and promotion-focused people. The most educationally important new finding was that testing immediately after corrective feedback not only greatly enhanced memory for the correct answers but also blocked the return of the errors.     

Birds of a feather… Generalization of facial structures following massive familiarization

Three experiments examined the effects of symmetry and complexity, as facial structures, on the aesthetic judgments of faces, and how these effects are modulated by moderate or massive familiarization. Results showed that symmetrical faces were judged as more attractive than nonsymmetrical faces, and simple faces were judged as more attractive than complex faces—with complexity defined as the number of facial elements. Complexity in faces seemed to have overridden the usually positive effects of facial symmetry. Moreover, while moderate familiarization did not modulate the effects, massive familiarization to a specific face type resulted in structural generalization effects: participants provided higher aesthetic judgments to faces that were new, but similarly structured to those which they were familiarized. This latter result contrasts previous studies that have found structural contrast effects following familiarization to meaningless, abstract stimuli. Taken together, these results reflect the greater biological and social significance of faces as compared to other objects in the world. They also show that people are drawn to those with familiar characteristics.     

Attention and Short-Term Memory in Normal Children,Aggressive Children,and Non-Aggressive Children with Attention-Deficit Disorder

In the present study, fifteen 7- to 9-year-old male school children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) as well as matched groups of aggressive and normal children were compared on scores obtained for initial acquisition of information and its maintenance in the short-term score under various attentional loads. Bi-colored, alphanumeric arrays were used in a partial-report technique. Retention was measured 0, 5, 10, and 20 s, after pre- and postexposure under both rehearsal and nonrehearsal conditions. ADD children (a) were deficient in original acquisition, (b) were unable to take sufficient advantage of decreased load conditions, and (c) showed decrements over time that paralleled those of the control group (CG). The results have been interpreted in light of maturational lag and the differences between ADD and aggressive groups.     

The Role of Individual Differences in the Accuracy of Confidence Judgments

Generally, self-assessment of accuracy in the cognitive domain produces overconfidence, whereas self-assessment of visual perceptual judgments results in under-confidence. Despite contrary empirical evidence, in models attempting to explain those phenomena, individual differences have often been disregarded. The authors report on 2 studies in which that shortcoming was addressed. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 520) completed a large number of cognitive-ability tests. Results indicated that individual differences provide a meaningful source of overconfidence and that a metacognitive trait might mediate that effect. In further analysis, there was only a relatively small correlation between test accuracy and confidence bias. In Experiment 2 (N = 107 participants), both perceptual and cognitive ability tests were included, along with measures of personality. Results again indicated the presence of a confidence factor that transcended the nature of the testing vehicle. Furthermore, a small relationship was found between that factor and some self-reported personality measures. Thus, personality traits and cognitive ability appeared to play only a small role in determining the accuracy of self-assessment. Collectively, the present results suggest that there are multiple causes of miscalibration, which current models of over- and underconfidence fail to encompass.