Fallacies and moral dilemmas

The continuing debate between utilitarians and deontologists often takes the form of disagreement over how particular moral dilemmas are to be resolved, but protagonists on both sides tend to overlook the possibility of resolving a dilemma with remainder, such as regret. The importance of remainder is also overlooked by critics of some absolutist ways of resolving or slipping between the horns of certain moral dilemmas. Moreover, deontologists, if not utilitarians, can be criticised for overlooking the possibility that, according to their theory, some dilemmas may be irresolvable. Virtue ethics, with its concentration on the agent, readily accommodates both mention of remainder and irresolvable dilemmas, and yields a specification of tragic dilemmas which the other two theories might like to take on.     

Athlete doping confrontation efficacy and confrontation likelihood

Evidence supports the role of coach doping confrontation efficacy (DCE; Sullivan et al., 2015) as a deterrent against athletes’ doping cognitions (Boardley et al., 2019; Sullivan & Razavi, 2017), but the role of the athlete has largely been ignored. Current anti-doping campaigns encourage athletes to report doping misconduct (i.e., whistleblowing), but some athletes would prefer to confront the athlete directly (Erickson et al., 2017). Thus, it is important to consider what may contribute to athletes’ likelihood to confront a doping teammate or opponent. The purpose of this study was to determine whether DCE could predict an athlete’s likelihood to confront a doping teammate or opponent. Additionally, doping moral disengagement (MD) was included as a possible moderator of this relationship. Surveys were completed by 155 college athletes (n_male = 145) to measure their perceived DCE, doping MD, likelihood to confront a teammate, and likelihood to confront an opponent. Separate linear regression analyses were run for the two targets of confrontation. In the teammate model, both DCE and doping MD were significant predictors of confrontation likelihood. DCE was the only significant predictor in the opponent model. Neither model presented with a significant interaction, suggesting no moderation effect. Results suggest perceived DCE is associated with a greater likelihood to confront a doping athlete, regardless of whether they are a teammate or opponent; however, moral disengagement plays a greater role if the athlete is a teammate. These findings imply that confrontation may be the first line of defense against doping before whistleblowing action is taken. Research should continue to explore antecedents and consequences of athlete doping confrontation, providing greater insight into the whistleblowing process.     

Eye movements and performance during bilateral tracing tasks

To examine the role of current visual monitoring in the between-hand differences in skilled movements, eye movements and errors during bilateral tracing tasks were analyzed in 10 subjects. When subjects traced a horizontal course abductively with both hands, the subject's gaze followed the movement of the right hand, and more errors were observed on the left hand. When subjects traced a vertical course, where fine motor control for alteration of movement direction was necessary, more errors were shown on the left hand despite the alternate visual scan of the two hands. The results were interpreted as showing that the between-hand differences in skilled movements are primarily due to the left hand's poor ability in motor output, and that the differential efficiency in the use of visual monitoring becomes an important factor in the between-hand differences when symmetrical movements of both hands with a low degree of difficulty are required.     

The psychometric attributes of Furth's nonverbal conservation test

The study examined the suitability of Furth's nonverbal conservation test as a psychometric tool for measuring individual differences in Zambia. The subjects included normal and mentally deficient Zambian children aged 7–13 years. The test was validated against age differentiation, differentiation of different intellectual levels, and school performance. The results showed that scores on the test increased significantly with increase in age, correlated positively and significantly with school scores, and differentiated normal from mentally deficient children. Within the normal sample the test also differentiated dull from average children; within the deficient sample the test did not differentiate the moderately mentally deficient from the severely mentally deficient. These results are explained by reference to the characteristics of the test, performance on which requires learning, memory, and perceptual abilities.     

The effects of hand and direction parameter preknowledge on choice reaction times

The two studies undertaken investigated how reaction times are affected by preknowledge concerning hand and direction parameters, and the order in which these data are disclosed. In the first experiment, preknowledge was manipulated by selecting 2-CRT pairs which had either a common hand or direction component. Reaction signal information content (as defined by the number of unknown response parameters) was controlled, but no parameter differences emerged. When parameter order was manipulated by sequential precuing, the ‘hand then direction’ order conferred a significant advantage. Motor preparation and response selection explanations for this effect are considered. Various difficulties with the paradigms used are discussed, including those of distinguishing between response selection and motor programming contributions, controlling and inferring the strategies adopted by subjects, and defining task difficulty. The prospects for independently fostering either response identification or motor preparation by means of an appropriate selection of precues are also discussed.     

The effect of self-recording and social reinforcement components of parent training programs

This investigation attempted to assess the effectiveness of two components of parent training programs: (1) the effect of a self-behavior management project prior to intervention with deviant child behaviors, and (2) that of social reinforcement from peers and the consultant. Four groups of parents were exposed to a basic training program and were measured on their success in an intervention program in the inappropriate behavior of their children (ages 7–9 years). Two groups of parents were requested to do a self-modification program prior to the intervention with deviant child behavior; two groups did a child intervention program without a self-management project. One group in the self-management and one group without self-management received verbal social reinforcement from peers and the consultant during interventions. Results obtained indicate that the parent group whose training involved a self-behavior management project prior to intervention with their child's inappropriate behavior and verbal social reinforcement achieved a significantly greater reduction of these behaviors when compared to the groups where either self-management of social reinforcement was used.     

Visual information processing in relation to age and to reading ability.

Temporal aspects of early visual information processing were studied developmentally in good and in poor reading male subjects ranging in age from 7 to 13 years. Forced-choice temporal integration and backward masking tasks, respectively, were utilized to assess duration of visual persistence and of relative rate of visual information processing. The results did not reveal differences in either visual persistence or processing rate in relation to reading ability at any age level studied. However, processing rate was found to increase markedly with chronological age in both the good and the poor readers while visual persistence did not vary significantly. The findings were discussed in relation to earlier work and in relation to current theoretical formulations of visual information processing.     

Memory and Counterfactual Simulations for Past Wrongdoings Foster Moral Learning and Improvement

In four studies, we investigated the role of remembering, reflecting on, and mutating personal past moral transgressions to learn from those moral mistakes and to form intentions for moral improvement. Participants reported having ruminated on their past wrongdoings, particularly their more severe transgressions, and they reported having frequently thought about morally better ways in which they could have acted instead (i.e., morally upward counterfactuals; Studies 1–3). The more that participants reported having mentally simulated morally better ways in which they could have acted, the stronger their intentions were to improve in the future (Studies 2 and 3). Implementing an experimental manipulation, we then found that making accessible a morally upward counterfactual after committing a moral transgression strengthened reported intentions for moral improvement—relative to resimulating the remembered event and considering morally worse ways in which they could have acted instead (Study 4). We discuss the implications of these results for competing theoretical views on the relationship between memory and morality and for functional theories of counterfactual thinking.     

Does change in ethical education influence core moral values? Towards history- and culture-aware morality model with application in automatic moral reasoning

In this study, we focus on ethical education as a means to improve artificial companion’s conceptualization of moral decision-making process in human users. In particular, we focus on automatically determining whether changes in ethical education influenced core moral values in humans throughout the century. We analyze ethics as taught in Japan before WWII and today to verify how much the pre-WWII moral attitudes have in common with those of contemporary Japanese, to what degree what is taught as ethics in school overlaps with the general population’s understanding of ethics, as well as to verify whether a major reform of the guidelines for teaching the school subject of “ethics” at school after 1946 has changed the way common people approach core moral questions (such as those concerning the sacredness of human life). We selected textbooks used in teaching ethics at school from between 1935 and 1937, and those used in junior high schools today (2019) and analyzed what emotional and moral associations such contents generated. The analysis was performed with an automatic moral and emotional reasoning agent and based on the largest available text corpus in Japanese as well as on the resources of a Japanese digital library. As a result, we found out that, despite changes in stereotypical view on Japan’s moral sentiments, especially due to historical events, past and contemporary Japanese share a similar moral evaluation of certain basic moral concepts, although there is a large discrepancy between how they perceive some actions to be beneficial to the society as a whole while at the same time being inconclusive when it comes to assessing the same action’s outcome on the individual performing them and in terms of emotional consequences. Some ethical categories, assessed positively before the war, while being associated with a nationalistic trend in education have also disappeared from the scope of interest of post- war society. The findings of this study support suggestions proposed by others that the development of personal AI systems requires supplementation with moral reasoning. Moreover, the paper builds upon this idea and further suggests that AI systems need to be aware of ethics not as a constant, but as a function with a correction on historical and cultural changes in moral reasoning.