Online research in philosophy

Abstract: Recent experimental research on the 'Knobe effect' suggests, somewhat surprisingly, that there is a bi-directional relation between attributions of intentional action and evaluative considerations. We defend a novel account of this phenomenon that exploits two factors: (i) an intuitive asymmetry in judgments of responsibility (e.g. praise/blame) and (ii) the fact that intentionality commonly connects the evaluative status of actions to the responsibility of actors. We present the results of several new studies that provide empirical evidence in support of this (...) account while disconfirming various currently prominent alternative accounts. We end by discussing some implications of this account for folk psychology. (shrink)

Sunstein's characterization of moral blunders jointly indicts an intuitive process and the structure of heuristics. But intuitions need not lead to error, and the problems with moral heuristics apply also to moral principles. Accordingly, moral development may well involve more, rather than less, intuitive responsiveness. This suggests a novel trajectory for future research into the development of appropriate moral judgments.

Philosophical discussion of the nature of know-how has focused on the relation between know-how and ability. Broadly speaking, neo-Ryleans attempt to identify know-how with a certain type of ability,1 while, traditionally, intellectualists attempt to reduce it to some form of propositional knowledge. For our purposes, however, this characterization of the debate is too crude. Instead, we prefer the following more explicit taxonomy. Anti-intellectualists, as we will use the term, maintain that knowing how to ? entails the ability to ?. Dispositionalists (...) maintain that the ability to ? is sufficient (modulo some fairly innocuous constraints) for knowing how to ?. Intellectualists, as we will use the term, deny the anti-intellectualist claim. Finally, radical intellectualists deny both the anti-intellectualist and dispositionalist claims. Pace neo-Ryleans (who in our taxonomy are those who accept both dispositionalism and anti-intellectualism), radical intellectualists maintain that the ability to ? is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowing how to ? (shrink)