Deontic logic and the possibility of moral conflict

Standard dyadic deontic logic (as well as standard deontic logic) has recently come under attack by moral philosophers who maintain that the axioms of standard dyadic deontic logic are biased against moral theories which generate moral conflicts. Since moral theories which generate conflicts are at least logically tenable, it is argued, standard dyadic deontic logic should be modified so that the set of logically possible moral theories includes those which generate such conflicts. I argue that (1) there are only certain types of moral conflicts which are interesting, and which have worried moral theorists, (2) the modification of standard dyadic deontic logic along the lines suggested by those who defend the possibility of moral conflicts makes possible only uninteresting types of moral conflicts, and (3) the general strategy of piecemeal modification standard dyadic deontic logic is misguided: the possibility of interesting moral conflicts cannot be achieved in that way.     

A Safety and Coping Planning Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents in Acute Psychiatric Care

Transitioning from an acute psychiatric care setting to a less restrictive environment after a suicidal event is arguably the most critical period of suicide risk for adolescents, making comprehensive safety and coping plans for this population ever more critical. In this paper we provide theoretical and empirical rationale for the need for developmental adaptations to current safety planning procedures for suicidal adolescents, as well as the standardization of pediatric safety plans for broader use across settings that provide acute psychiatric care to adolescents. We describe how we developed the Adolescent Safety and Coping Plan (ASCP) using qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 adolescents and their parents, explain the specific components of the ASCP, and give a case example of the ASCP being used with a young adolescent and her parents. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the barriers and facilitators of the use of the ASCP in settings that provide acute psychiatric care, as well as the need for future research to test the ASCP with diverse adolescent and family populations and settings.     

Is a good god logically possible? James P. Sterba,Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, XI and 209 pp, $29.99 (paper)

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The daily inventory of stressful events: an interview-based approach for measuring daily stressors

This study introduces the Daily Inventory of Stressful Events (DISE), an interview-based approach to the measurement of multiple aspects of daily stressors through daily telephone interviews. Using a U.S. national sample of adults aged 25 to 74 (N = 1,031), the prevalence as well as the affective and physical correlates of daily stressors are examined. Respondents had at least one daily stressor on 40 percent of the study days and multiple stressors on 11 percent of the study days. The most common class of stressors was interpersonal tension followed by work-related stressors for men and network stressors (events that occur to close others) for women. Stressors that involved danger of loss were more prevalent than stressors in which loss actually occurred. Regression analyses showed that specific types of daily stressors such as interpersonal tensions and network stressors were unique predictors of both health symptoms and mood.     

The effect of daily stress, personality, and age on daily negative affect

The current study examined whether stress reactivity becomes stronger or weaker with age. Daily stress and daily negative affect were modeled using 1,012 subjects from the National Study of Daily Events (NSDE), an 8-day daily diary study. Age ranged from 25 to 74. Data were modeled using within-person HLM techniques. Daily stress and neuroticism interacted in their effect on daily negative affect. There was a stronger association between daily stress and negative affect for persons high in neuroticism as compared to those low on the trait. In addition, daily stress and age interacted in their effect on daily negative affect. There was a stronger association between daily stress and negative affect for older as compared to younger adults. Results suggest heightened reactivity to stressors in older adulthood, perhaps due to kindling effects. Changes in the aging brain may explain this effect. Our investigations illuminate the complexities that characterize the set of associations among negative affect, stress, personality, and age, and point to potential aging or cohort effects.     

The effect of context on the processing of type-shifting verbs

Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to "coerce" the NP direct object to shift its role to encompass the activity that begin requires as complement (e.g., writing, reading). Empirical support for this view has been provided by McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff (2001). In the present study, however, in two self-paced reading experiments, type-shifting effects (taken to be longer reading times engendered by the computation of the coercion process) were not obtained with sentences in isolation (Experiment 1) or with sentences embedded in contexts that specified the nature of the activity performed over the complement NP (Experiment 2). It is argued that type-shifting verbs are similar to non-preferred verbs for given contexts and that type-shifting operations are pragmatic inferences computed over underspecified semantic representations.     

On the representation of Portuguese gender-inflected words in the mental lexicon

This study aims at verifying whether Portuguese gender-inflected nouns and adjectives are represented as full forms as suggested by Spanish data (Dominguez, Cuetos, & Segui, 1999). A series of lexical decision experiments is reported. Grammatical gender, frequency dominance, and grammatical category are manipulated and cumulative frequency is controlled. The results do not provide support for a full form representation of gender-inflected words. They suggest that grammatical category, or the nature of the inflectional process involved (lexical or syntactic), affects the way words are represented and accessed. Shorter recognition latencies were obtained for nouns drawn from Feminine dominant gender-inflected pairs than from Masculine dominant pairs whereas a tendency in the opposite direction was observed in adjectives. The effect of frequency dominance appears, nevertheless, to be restricted to feminine nouns. The data are compatible with the view that masculine nouns and adjectives are represented as gender-unmarked forms. These results are discussed in relation to current dual-access models of word recognition and to the notion of "interpretability" of lexico-syntactic features, as put forward in the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics.     

Treating boys with low school achievement and behavior problems: comparison of two kinds of intervention

Children with low school achievement frequently have behavior problems and interpersonal difficulties that pose a risk for psychosocial maladjustment. 39 boys were assessed and randomly assigned to one of two group treatment conditions: (a) interpersonal cognitive problem-solving for whom training was provided through oral and written language activities that met children's social and academic needs and (b) a language workshop, during which only academic difficulties were treated. Parents of children in both groups received group attention. Posttreatment assessments indicated that boys in both conditions showed significant improvements on school achievement and behavior problems, as they were measured by behavior scales reported by mothers and by an academic achievement test. Children in the problem-solving group improved significantly more than the other group on most measures. These results suggest that work with interpersonal cognitive problem-solving skills combined with reading and writing activities is a useful means to produce improvements in child behavior and school achievement.     

Lucky Libertarianism

Perhaps the greatest impediment to a viable libertarianism is the provision of a satisfactory explanation of how actions that are undetermined by an agent's character can still be under the control of, or up to, the agent. The luck problem has been most assiduously examined by Robert Kane who supplies a detailed account of how this problem can be resolved. Although Kane's theory is innovative, insightful, and more resourceful than most of his critics believe, it ultimately cannot account for the type of control that moral responsibility and (ultimate) agency legitimately require.     

What do category-specific semantic deficits tell us about the representation of lexical concepts?

A reassessment of category-specific semantic deficits in light of their contribution to a theory of the representation of lexical concepts is proposed. Two theories are examined: one, held by the majority of researchers in the field, claims that concepts are represented by sets of features; another, in contrast, claims that concepts are atomic representations. An analysis of category-specific semantic deficits in terms of inferential relations (of the meaning-postulates type) between atomic concepts is elaborated. It is argued that this theory can better account for the pattern of performance exhibited by patients with semantic deficits.