This paper reports an experiment that investigates interpretive distinctions between two different expressions of generalization in Spanish. In particular, our aim was to find out when the distinction between generic statements (GS) such as Tigers have stripes and universally quantified statements (UQS) such as All tigers have stripes was acquired in Spanish-speaking children of two different age groups (4/5-year-olds and 8/9-year-olds), and then compare these results with those of adults. The starting point of this research was the semantic distinction (...) between GS and UQS in that the former admit exceptions, unlike the latter. On the other hand, several authors have observed a Generic overgeneralization effect (GOG) consisting in allowing for UQS to be felicitous in the face of exceptions, thus proposing that this “error” stems from GS being defaults (simpler, more easily learned and processed). In the current paper we aimed to test the “Generics as Default” (GaD) hypothesis by comparing GS and UQS in three different age ranges. Our data show that, overall, the accuracy of GS is greater than the accuracy of UQS. Moreover, we also confirm a hypothesized interaction between age and NP type (GS vs UQS). Further, we present several data points that are not predicted by the GaD, including an observed decline in the accuracy of GS in the older group of children as well as in adults, and that children fail at rejecting statements that are not considered to be true generalizations. (shrink)

Generics about social kinds (or GSKs) frequently propagate descriptions that carry normative force (e.g., 'women are emotional'). Some philosophers of language attribute this to GSKs’ tendency to transmit essentialist beliefs about social kinds. According to these accounts, utterances of GSKs implicate that there is something in the nature of social kinds that causes them to possess the properties described, and that individual members of these social kinds therefore ought to exhibit (or be expected to exhibit) these properties. Here, I (...) draw on empirical evidence to suggest an alternative account. According to my framework, an utterance of a GSK implicates a distinction between the social kind described and its salient conceptual opposite, producing what I call a dichotomizing perspective. For example, ‘women are emotional’ suggests that men are not. Importantly, such distinctions frequently persist in the societal common ground as a function of social power, in part due to their alignment with hierarchical social structures between dichotomized social kinds. This enables such GSKs to perpetuate biased patterns of attention, expectation, and behavior even in the absence of essentialist belief. (shrink)

This paper deals with the exceptions-tolerance property of generic sentences with indefinite singular and bare plural subjects (IS and BP generics, respectively) and with the way this property is connected to some well-known observations about felicity differences between the two types of generics (e.g. Lawler's 1973, Madrigals are popular vs. #A madrigal is popular). I show that whereas both IS and BP generics tolerate exceptional and contextually irrelevant individuals and situations in a strikingly similar way, which indicates the existence (...) of a basically equivalent tolerance mechanism, there is also a difference between them, unnoticed so far, which concerns the degree to which the properties of the legitimate exceptions can be characterized in advance. Following claims in Greenberg (2003), I argue that both this newly observed difference as well as the traditional felicity differences result from an underlying contrast in the type of ‘non-accidentalness’ expressed by the two types of generic sentences, and more formally, in the accessibility relations that their generic quantifier (Gen) is compatible with. To capture the new difference in tolerance of exceptions, I develop an improved version of the exceptions-tolerance mechanism for generic sentences suggested in Kadmon & Landman (1993), namely, a restriction on the set of individuals and situations quantified by Gen, which is partially vague to two different degrees using supervaluationist methods. The different degrees of vagueness in this restriction are shown to be systematically dependent on the two types of accessibility relations that IS and BP generics are compatible with, which are redefined as precise and vague restrictions on the generic quantification over worlds. (shrink)

We seem to talk about repeatable artworks, like symphonies, films, and novels, all the time. We say things like, "The Moonlight Sonata has three movements" and "Duck Soup makes me laugh". How are these sentences to be understood? We argue against the simple subject/predicate view, on which the subjects of the sentences refer to individuals and the sentences are true iff the referents of the subjects have the properties picked out by the predicates. We then consider two alternative responses that (...) involve reading these sentences as generics, similar to "The polar bear has four paws". The first response takes these sentences to be about kinds, and the second takes the relevant noun-phrases to act as predicates. We reject these accounts, but offer a third alternative which is informed by both, and which enables us to deny the existence of repeatable artworks while endorsing the truth of sentences seemingly about them. (shrink)

What does it mean to be an embodied thinker of abstract concepts? Does embodiment shape the character and quality of our understanding of universals such as 'dog' and 'beauty', and would a non-embodied mind understand such concepts differently? I examine these questions through the lens of Thomas Aquinas’s remarks on the differences between embodied (human) intellects and non-embodied (angelic) intellects. In Aquinas, I argue, the difference between embodied and non-embodied intellection of extramental realities is rooted in the fact that embodied (...) and non-embodied intellects grasp different kinds of universals by means of different kinds of intelligible species (intellectual likenesses), which elicit in them different “modes” of understanding. By spelling out what exactly it means to be an embodied knower, on Aquinas’s account, I argue, we can also shed new light on his mysterious claim that the embodied intellect “turns to phantasms”—the imagination’s likenesses of individuals—in its acts of understanding. (shrink)

The discourse on freedom that Kant unfolds in his writings on the history of philosophy, especially in his essay Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent (1784), is a constitutive component of the moral perspective whose key concept is the notion of freedom. This is why critical philosophy, as Kant says, has its own “chiliastic expectation”, and the critical philosopher is a prophet who himself “occasions und produces the events he predicts”. Questions concerning the proper use of freedom – (...) how does freedom position itself in the individual ethics of each person when he/she wants to act morally, how does it position the community in legal ethics when it merges in a liberal state through the peacemaking function of the law, or how does the community of states position itself in international law when, with cosmopolitan intent, freedom devotes itself to a utopian peace mission – these are always questions concerning the concept of freedom which has emerged from a critical process of arbitration. (shrink)

Searle’s (1963/1991) account of the communicative intentions in speech acts purports to be an advance over that of Grice (1957), in acknowledging the ineliminable role of the linguistic (usage) rules in enabling the hearer to recognize the speaker’s communicative intentions. In this paper we argue that, given some plausible assumptions about ordinary speech exchanges, Searle’s insight on this score is incompatible with his (1983) commitment to internalism in the philosophy of mind. As a result, Searle cannot have it both (...) ways: either he must give up his core insight regarding the ineliminable role of linguistic (usage) rules in the hearer’s recognition of a speaker’s communicative intentions, or he must give up his commitment to internalism the philosophy of mind. We conclude by arguing that this lesson is generic: the forced choice is one thatalltheorists must face, insofar as we theorize about the role of language in the communication of thought through speech. (shrink)

A generic statement is a type of generalization that is made by asserting that a "kind" has a certain property. For example we might hear that marshmallows are sweet. Here, we are talking about the "kind" marshmallow and assert that individual instances of this kind have the property of being sweet. Almost all of our common sense knowledge about the everyday world is put in terms of generic statements. What can make these generic sentences be true (...) even when there are exceptions? A mass term is one that does not "divide its reference;" the word water is a mass term; the word dog is a count term. In a certain vicinity, one can count and identity how many dogs there are, but it doesn't make sense to do that for water--there just is water present. The philosophical literature is rife with examples concerning how a thing can be composed of a mass, such as a statue being composed of clay. Both generic statements and mass terms have led philosophers, linguists, semanticists, and logicians to search for theories to accommodate these phenomena and relationships. The contributors to this interdisciplinary volume study the nature and use of generics and mass terms. Noted researchers in the psychology of language use material from the investigation of human performance and child-language learning to broaden the range of options open for formal semanticists in the construction of their theories, and to give credence to some of their earlier postulations--for instance, concerning different types of predications that are available for true generics and for the role of object recognitions in the development of count vs. mass terms. Relevant data also is described by investigating the ways children learn these sorts of linguistic items: children can learn how to sue generic statements correctly at an early age, and children are adept at individuating objects and distinguishing them from the stuff of which they are made also at an early age. (shrink)

As urbanization assumes planetary scales under variegated market regimes, spaces and opportunities for collective provisions of care are constrained. Long honed relational skills and the use of heterogeneous relationships for economic opportunity are disentangled in favor of intensely individuated adaptations to precarious livelihoods. Urban life increasingly becomes a continuously updated series of interoperable standardizations and probabilistic calculations. Yet endurance for large numbers of urban residents remains predicated on indifference to and acts of detachment from prevailing modes of urban power, (...) in operations of stealth and supplement long embodied by blackness, and Black Power. A notion of generic blackness is explored as conveying both the logic exhibited to define and contain the unbounded and errant forces shaping urban life and the opacities elaborated by residents of a lower-working-class district in Jakarta. (shrink)

Resumen Kierkegaard, en su Diario, ha dado un juicio filosófico favorable sobre los actos con los que Lutero ha iniciado la Reforma, pues con estos ha afirmado la autoridad de competencia del individuo que es un prius respecto al Estado y a la Iglesia. Por otro lado, Kierkegaard ha señalado que estos actos han sido viciados por razones filosóficas que han llevado no sólo a la formación de la Iglesia de Estado, sino a la del Estado-Iglesia. Primeramente, se trata de (...) razones de carácter político-filosóficas: una concepción del Poder confusa, una desvalorización del individuo a favor de la comunidad y del Estado, una perspectiva equivocada de la felicidad-salvación del hombre. Además, Kierkegaard ha señalado razones estrictamente filosóficas que han llevado al Estado-Iglesia: una equivocada concepción del ser y una errónea visión de lo que es la razón y el conocimiento. Estas razones, positivas y negativas, señalan cuestiones aún no resueltas en nuestros tiempos.Kierkegaard in his Diary has ¿ven a favorable philosophical judgment on the facts with which Luther has initiated the Reforma, for with these has affirmed the compeUnce authoritj of the individual who is a prius with respect to the State and the Church. On the other hand, Kierkegaard has pointed out that these acts have been vitiated by philosop bical reasons that have led not onlj to the formation of the Church of State, but to that of the Church-State. Firstlj, these are politicalphilosophical reasons: a confused conception of power, a devaluation of the individual in favor of the community and the state, a mistaken perspective of man's happiness and salvation. In addition, Kierkegaard has pointed out strictlj philosoph-ical reasons that have led the Church State: a mistaken conception of being and an erroneous visión of what is reason and knowledge. These reasons, positive and negative, point to issues not jet resolved in our times. (shrink)

Resumen Kierkegaard, en su Diario, ha dado un juicio filosófico favorable sobre los actos con los que Lutero ha iniciado la Reforma, pues con estos ha afirmado la autoridad de competencia del individuo que es un prius respecto al Estado y a la Iglesia. Por otro lado, Kierkegaard ha señalado que estos actos han sido viciados por razones filosóficas que han llevado no sólo a la formación de la Iglesia de Estado, sino a la del Estado-Iglesia. Primeramente, se trata de (...) razones de carácter político-filosóficas: una concepción del Poder confusa, una desvalorización del individuo a favor de la comunidad y del Estado, una perspectiva equivocada de la felicidad-salvación del hombre. Además, Kierkegaard ha señalado razones estrictamente filosóficas que han llevado al Estado-Iglesia: una equivocada concepción del ser y una errónea visión de lo que es la razón y el conocimiento. Estas razones, positivas y negativas, señalan cuestiones aún no resueltas en nuestros tiempos.Kierkegaard in his Diary has ¿ven a favorable philosophical judgment on the facts with which Luther has initiated the Reforma, for with these has affirmed the compeUnce authoritj of the individual who is a prius with respect to the State and the Church. On the other hand, Kierkegaard has pointed out that these acts have been vitiated by philosop bical reasons that have led not onlj to the formation of the Church of State, but to that of the Church-State. Firstlj, these are politicalphilosophical reasons: a confused conception of power, a devaluation of the individual in favor of the community and the state, a mistaken perspective of man's happiness and salvation. In addition, Kierkegaard has pointed out strictlj philosoph-ical reasons that have led the Church State: a mistaken conception of being and an erroneous visión of what is reason and knowledge. These reasons, positive and negative, point to issues not jet resolved in our times. (shrink)

Most writers on resource management presume that local populations, if they act in their self-interest, seldom conserve or protect natural resources without external intervention or privatization. Using the example of forest management by villagers in the Indian Himalayas, this paper argues that rural populations can often use resources sustainably and successfully, even under assumptions of self-interested rationality. Under a set of specified social and environmental conditions, conditions that prevail in large areas of the Himalayas and may also exist in other (...) mountain regions, community institutions are more efficient in managing resources than either private individuals or the central government. In advancing this argument, the paper undermines the often dogmatic belief in the universal superiority of private forms of ownership and management. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that, in Aristotle’s thought, the political commitment of authentically wise men is ultimately motivated by an intellectual rather than by a merely practical interest. Through analysis of Eudemian Ethics A 4. 1216 a 23-7 and Q 3. 1248 b 8-37 I shall contend that the socalled “true politician” is to be identified with a kalos kai agathos man, i.e. with an individual who – rather than being driven by mere desire for the promotion (...) of the common good – acts in the ultimate analysis out of a deep concern for the inherent worth of moral virtue. I shall propose that, while acting “for the sake of the fine”, the true politician aims not only to reach an appreciation of moral virtue independent of the possible benefits this can bring about, but also to maximize contemplative activity within the political sphere. After a preliminary introduction to the issue of true statesmanship, I try to understand in what respect the good differs from the fine , and I shall offer an account of the relationships between the two notions at issue by reference to their occurrences in the Eudemian Ethics and in the Metaphysics. I will suggest that the fine, if predicated of the practical good, expresses its intelligibility and liability to contemplation. In the second part I concentrate on the issue of kalokagathia and enquire into to kalon from the point of view of the lawgiver’s intentions and motives of virtuous action. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that, in Aristotle’s thought, the political commitment of authentically wise men is ultimately motivated by an intellectual rather than by a merely practical interest. Through analysis of Eudemian Ethics A 4. 1216 a 23-7 and Q 3. 1248 b 8-37 I shall contend that the socalled “true politician” is to be identified with a kalos kai agathos man, i.e. with an individual who – rather than being driven by mere desire for the promotion (...) of the common good – acts in the ultimate analysis out of a deep concern for the inherent worth of moral virtue. I shall propose that, while acting “for the sake of the fine”, the true politician aims not only to reach an appreciation of moral virtue independent of the possible benefits this can bring about, but also to maximize contemplative activity within the political sphere. After a preliminary introduction to the issue of true statesmanship, I try to understand in what respect the good differs from the fine, and I shall offer an account of the relationships between the two notions at issue by reference to their occurrences in the Eudemian Ethics and in the Metaphysics. I will suggest that the fine, if predicated of the practical good, expresses its intelligibility and liability to contemplation. In the second part I concentrate on the issue of kalokagathia and enquire into to kalon from the point of view of the lawgiver’s intentions and motives of virtuous action. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate and explore the significance of a distinction in Schopenhauer's pessimism which has not yet received detailed attention in the secondary literature. Schopenhauer is well known to have argued for the thesis that the fundamental feature of sentient life is pervasive suffering, and on these grounds held that individual lives are not worth living. However, he similarly claims with frequency that the nonexistence of the world “as a whole” is preferable to its existence. This is (...) a distinct thesis, and it is unclear how Schopenhauer thinks it relates to the first. This investigation seeks to rectify this, arguing that the ambiguous concept of the world “as a whole” has at least two interpretations in Schopenhauer's texts. Moreover, that this “world-pessimism”—once properly understood—may avoid certain objections that pessimism at the level of the individual is vulnerable to. (shrink)

The law of England and Wales provides that an adult with capacity has the right to refuse medical treatment both contemporaneously and in an advance refusal. Legislation separates general advance refusals of treatment from advance refusals of life-sustaining treatment. The law, outlined in ss.24 to 26 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, is stricter for creation of the latter. These sections brought with them a new age of interests by purporting to elevate individual autonomy as the primary concern. Beginning (...) with the classical tale of Odysseus and a general discussion of the value to be found in a law seeking to preserve individual autonomy, this thesis seeks to act as a critique of the current enactment in practice. The provisions are already under-used and under-applied; without change, they may never reach the stage where they are ethically and practically viable. It is argued that the advance refusals provisions are not taking full effect due to a combination of lacking moral grounding and general dismissal of key ethical dilemmas at the forefront of application. Building on this, the moral basis for this thesis is found in Alan Gewirth’s Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) which links directly with the general application of human rights. The PGC becomes a compass for determining how best to treat persons when addressing the three most prominent challenges faced by the 2005 Act which are: the debate between the conferred right of autonomy versus the right to life; the issue of personhood; and, the personal identity problem. Ultimately, unless framework provisions are strengthened, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is rethought in light of prominent ethical, legal and social considerations, the constraints of the Act on paper will continue to suppress the important underlying values promulgating individual autonomy. (shrink)

Medical, scientific and societal progress has been such that, in a universalist humanist perspective such as the WHO’s, it has become an ethical imperative for the primary endpoints in evidence based health care research to be expressed in e.g. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). The classical endpoints of discrete health‐related functions and duration of survival are increasingly perceived as unacceptably reductionistic. The major problem in ‘felicitometrics’ is the measurement of the ‘quality’ term in QALYs. That the mental, physical and social (...) domains, each containing many dimensions and items, all contribute to QOL is uncontroversial. What is controversial, is the weight of the different dimensions in overall QOL. It has been shown to be very different between different patient populations. In human individuals, assuredly complex systems, the many dimensions and items of QOL observably interact, probably sometimes also in chaotic ways. In these conditions, the weights of isolated items in individuals become for all practical purposes meaningless. Therefore, the much used multi‐item questionnaires at best describe, but do not evaluate QOL, neither in individuals, nor in populations. For example, allergic patients treated with cetirizine scored better than those a placebo on all dimensions of the SF‐36, a standard QOL questionnaire. Here there is no serious doubt that the treatment improved QOL, because it is highly unlikely that any important dimension on which the patient groups would have scored otherwise is missing in the SF‐36. However, whether piracetam treatment of acute stroke, which improved the surrogate endpoints neurological and functional scores, also improved QOL is plausible, but will be proven only when comprehensive QOL measurement will have been done. And suppose in randomised populations of end‐stage metastatic solid cancer patients, one would compare palliative last‐line chemotherapy with only palliative care, and one would, as can be expected, find no significant differences in average survival, and chemotherapy superior for the mental domain, but inferior for the physical comfort domain: we would not know which treatment, on aggregate, would be the better. The problem is that QOL is an individual and emergent construct, the resultant of a great many intractions, and of a different order than its contributing components. Overall QOL can therefore best be captured only as the Gestalt of a global self‐assessment. Just as people in everyday life, while acting under uncertainty, make global assessments all the time, so they can seriously answer the serious question: ‘How have you been?’ A solemn, practical, non peer‐relativistic, non‐cultural, experiential, and well tolerated way to obtain such responses is Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA), in which the subjects' memories of the best and the worst times in their life experience define their individual scale of QOL. ACSA is thus both exquisitely idiosyncratic, and yet can in a universalist humanistic perspective be considered generic. Using both a multi‐item questionnaire and a global assessment allows by one logistic regression, to estimate the weights of the dimensions and items in populations, and thus identify those whose improvement would most contribute to the QOL of the greatest number. A combined approach to measurement of QOL is necessary to maximise the utility of QOL interventions. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the comparison of individual and group decision-making, in a stochastic inter-temporal problem in two decision environments, namely risk and ambiguity. Using a consumption/saving laboratory experiment, we investigate behaviour in four treatments: individual choice under risk; group choice under risk; individual choice under ambiguity and group choice under ambiguity. Comparing decisions within and between decision environments, we find an anti-symmetric pattern. While individuals are choosing on average closer to the theoretical optimal predictions, compared to (...) groups in the risk treatments, groups tend to deviate less under ambiguity. Within decision environments, individuals deviate more when they choose under ambiguity, while groups are better planners under ambiguity rather than under risk. Our results extend the often observed pattern of individuals behaving more optimally under risk, to its dynamic dimension. (shrink)

The paper presents the profiles of three American thinkers associated with the tradition of individualist anarchism. These will be: Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) and Murray Newton Rothbard (1926–1995). These thinkers were involved not only in writing, but were also active participants in the political life of the time. In their opinion, the state, whose genesis is based on violence and conquest, and the individual are the greatest enemies. The state was perceived as the greatest threat to (...) the freedom of the individual, as it violated the principles of natural law, which in turn was to constitute the moral foundation of society. The state was, therefore, in the opinion of these thinkers, something inherently unjust, because by force and against the will of its citizens it forced them to obey. They did not perceive history in terms of class struggle, but as a struggle between individuals and society against the state. Spooner compared the state to a gang of robbers and murderers (valuing them higher than the state, however) and argued that the constitution did not bind citizens in any way, as it had not been signed by them personally, and the government had no power over the one handed over to it by free units. Nock pointed to the gradual appropriation by the state (“professional criminals”) of competences belonging to society, and the opposing goals of both. He distinguished between a government that aims to protect individuals and justice, and a state that aims to plunder, based on a law it has created. Rothbard advocated the abolition of the state as a tax consumer and its replacement with an anarcho-capitalist order in which private property would be its foundation. Theories of Spooner, Nock and Rothbard, although directed against the state, were not only negative. At their roots was the good of individuals. For Spooner, they were primarily workers, for Nock, citizens, and for Rothbard, entrepreneurs and owners. This fact is worth emphasizing, as the criticism of anarchism often boils down to allegations of radicalism and utopianism, without taking into account its protectionist nature. Criticism of the state is always a consequence of the human vision and should be considered from this perspective. The concepts of Spooner, Nock and Rothbard, although directed against the state, were not only negative. At their root was the good of individuals. For Spooner, they were primarily workers, for Nock, citizens, and for Rothbard, entrepreneurs and owners. This fact is worth emphasizing, as the criticism of anarchism often boils down to allegations of radicalism and utopianism, without taking into account its protectionist nature. In the article, in addition to presenting the positions of American individualist anarchists, we will pay attention to the positive aspects of the criticism of the state and show that already in the nineteenth and twentieth century anarchists recognized certain mechanisms of power, which also occur with particular intensity today. (shrink)

The construct of “choking under pressure” is concerned with the phenomenon of unexpected, sudden, and significant declines in individual athletes’ performances in important situations and has received empirical attention in the field of sport psychology. Although a number of theories about the reasons for the occurrence of choking under pressure exist and several intervention approaches have been developed, underlying mechanisms of choking are still under debate and the effectiveness of existing interventions remains contested. These sudden performance declines also occur (...) in team sport. “Collective sport team collapse,” which describes the situation when an entire sport team underperforms significantly within an important competitive situation, has received less empirical attention, in comparison to individual choking research. While there are a few studies that have investigated causes of collective team collapse, understandably, there has been limited empirical investigation of preventative and intervention strategies. Although the two constructs appear to share several similar characteristics and mechanisms, research has not yet examined the conceptual, theoretical, empirical, and practical links between choking under pressure and collective sport team collapse. In this review article, we seek to examine these similarities and differences and identify new ways of thinking about future interventions. Furthermore, current empirical understandings in the field of choking under pressure and collective sport team collapse are presented and the most effective intervention approaches for both constructs are introduced. On the basis of this examination, we modestly make some initial recommendations for sport psychological practitioners and future research. (shrink)

Dream reports were collected from normal subjects in an effort to determine the degree to which dream reports can be used to identify individual dreamers. Judges were asked to group the reports by their authors. The judges scored the reports correctly at chance levels. This finding indicated that dreams may be at least as much like each other as they are the signature of individual dreamers. Our results suggest that dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals (...) who produced them when identifiers like names and gender of friends and family members are removed from the dream report. In addition to using dreams to learn about an individual, we must look at dreams as telling us about important common or generic aspects of human consciousness. (shrink)

Starting from an anecdote reported by Ernst Mach in the Analysis of Sensations, the author shows how the distinction between intentionality de re and intentionality de se can contribute to solving the individuation problem, at least for those individuals who are capable of self-referentiality. Intentionality is expressed linguistically in the form of the oratio obliqua, in the context of which the subordinate can be false even when the whole is true. The analysis of the conditions of falsity of the subordinate (...) tells us that this can be false either because the predicate does not fit to the subject or by a failure of reference, conceived according to the descriptive theory of reference. The intentionality de se is peculiar precisely by the fact that in this case the reference cannot fail and uniquely individuates the haecceitas of the intentional subject. (shrink)

In this article, we elicit both individuals’ and couples’ preferences assuming prospect theory (PT) as a general theoretical framework for decision under risk. Our experimental method, based on certainty equivalents, allows to infer measurements of utility and probability weighting at the individual level and at the couple level. Our main results are twofold. First, risk attitude for couples is compatible with PT and incorporates deviations from expected utility similar to those found in individual decision making. Second, couples’ attitudes (...) towards risk are found to be consistent with a mix of individual attitudes, women being more influent on couples’ preferences at low probability levels. (shrink)

In an excerpt preserved by John Stobaeus in the chapter of the Anthologion entitled Peri tôn eph’hêmin, Porphyry addresses the issue of the origin of evil within the context of a broader investigation of individual autonomy : is it enough to envisage man as a subject with the freedom to act in order to make him responsible for evil and thus to free God of any responsibility with regard to the ills besetting individuals? An answer to this question is (...) provided on the basis of a comparative reading of the Myth of Er and of Homer. The conclusion reached is that evil is not intrinsic to human nature, but rather concerns certain forms of existence which individuals opt for when they disregard the divine and forego rationality. Consequently, God is not responsible for evil.The exegetical and argumentative strategy adopted by Porphyry in order to support this answer suggests that his stance is a polemical one, targeting Stoics in particular. Against Chrysippus’ reading of the same verses from Homer, which leads to a deterministic perspective, or at any rate one likely to prove inconsistent, Porphyry offers an interpretation of Homer as a coherent thinker and a forerunner of Plato : Homer is seen to have proposed a kind of dichotomy between the self-determination and the necessity that characterise the life of the soul, and as having assigned individuals the faculty of choosing between virtue and vice, thus making them ultimately responsible with regard to evil. (shrink)

Whitehouse's model explains when people engage in self-sacrifice, but not who is most likely to do so. We propose incorporating individual differences, such as cognitive style (one's inclination toward intuition versus deliberation), and argue that individuals who rely on intuition may be more likely to (1) develop group identity fusion after an emotional experience and (2) engage in pro-social self-sacrifice.

This paper aims to present and evaluate Brentano’s account of the individuation of mental acts. In his early works, Brentano assimilated mental acts to tropes; however, he encountered difficulties in explaining their individuation, since the usual solutions for the individuation of tropes were not readily applicable to his theory of mental acts. In a later period, Brentano introduced into his psychology what he called the “soul”, and this allowed him to explain the individuation of mental acts. (...) Finally, after his “reistic” turn, he excluded mental acts from his ontology, for he rejected abstracta of any kind, including abstract particulars, and admitted only things, or res (in Latin), that is, concrete particulars; in his late philosophy, there are no “thinkings”, but only “thinkers”. However, he still needed to explain what individuates different thinkers, and this was again the soul. In the conclusion, the paper critically compares the different theoretical options considered by Brentano. (shrink)

Examination dishonesty is a global problem that became particularly critical after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote learning. Academic research has often examined this phenomenon as only one aspect of a broader concept of academic dishonesty and as a one-dimensional construct. This article builds on existing knowledge and proposes a novel, two-factor model of examination misconduct, dividing it into individual and collective forms of dishonesty. A study conducted on a large sample of 462 Polish (...) students confirmed the psychometric quality of the new Examination Dishonesty Intention Scale (EDIS) and the superiority of the two-factor model over the unidimensional model. In addition, we tested the psychological correlates of both types of academic dishonesty and demonstrated their divergent validity. The results suggest that EDIS can be a valuable tool for exploring the intentions of exam dishonesty and has potential for practical applications in academic integrity policy and research. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that gratitude is not necessarily affective or motivating. Against a common trend in recent philosophical treatments of the notion, indeed, I argue for the introduction of an important but neglected kind of gratitude that is simply a matter of believing that one has been benefitted by a benevolent benefactor. I will call this non-affective, non-motivating kind of gratitude “generic,” and the kind – taking center stage in the literature – that is affective and motivating (...) “deep.” After defending the distinction, I explore the connection between these kinds of gratitude. (shrink)

This chapter compares simple predicates of personal taste (PPTs) such as tasty and beautiful with their complex counterparts (eg tastes good, looks beautiful). I argue that the former differ from the latter along two dimensions. Firstly, simple PPTs are individual-level predicates, whereas complex ones are stage-level. Secondly, covert Experiencer arguments of simple PPTs obligatorily receive a generic interpretation; by contrast, the covert Experiencer of a complex PPT can receive a generic, bound variable or referential interpretation. I provide (...) an analysis of these facts based on a novel proposal about the licensing of individual-level predicates (the ‘Licensing Condition on ILPs’). This condition states that all covert pronominal arguments of an individual-level predicate must be bound by the generic operator. Finally, I show that generic construal of the Experiencer is a necessary condition for faultless disagreement. This is evidence in favour of treatments of subjective meaning that appeal to genericity, and against relativism about PPTs. (shrink)

We introduce an explicit definition for “hidden correlations” on individual entities in a compound system: when one individual entity is measured, this induces a well-defined transition of the “proper state” of the other individual entities. We prove that every compound quantum system described in the tensor product of a finite number of Hilbert spaces can be uniquely represented as a collection of individual entities between which there exist such hidden correlations. We investigate the significance of these (...) hidden correlation representations within Aerts' creation-discovery approach and in particular their compatibility with the hidden measurement formalism. This leads us to the introduction of the notions of “soft” and “hard” “acts of creation” and to the observation that our approach can be seen as a theory of individuals when it is compared to the standard quantum theory. (shrink)

Programming artificial intelligence to make fairness assessments of texts through top-down rules, bottom-up training, or hybrid approaches, has presented the challenge of defining cross-cultural fairness. In this paper a simple method is presented which uses vectors to discover if a verb is unfair or fair. It uses already existing relational social ontologies inherent in Word Embeddings and thus requires no training. The plausibility of the approach rests on two premises. That individuals consider fair acts those that they would be (...) willing to accept if done to themselves. Secondly, that such a construal is ontologically reflected in Word Embeddings, by virtue of their ability to reflect the dimensions of such a perception. These dimensions being: responsibility vs. irresponsibility, gain vs. loss, reward vs. sanction, joy vs. pain, all as a single vector. The paper finds it possible to quantify and qualify a verb as fair or unfair by calculating the cosine similarity of the said verb’s embedding vector against FairVec—which represents the above dimensions. We apply this to Glove and Word2Vec embeddings. Testing on a list of verbs produces an F1 score of 95.7, which is improved to 97.0. Lastly, a demonstration of the method’s applicability to sentence measurement is carried out. (shrink)

Despite the growing body of research on emotional labor, little has been known about the social consequences of emotional labor. Drawing on emotional dissonance theory, the authors investigate the relationship between the felt emotional dissonance and prosocial behavior (e.g., donation to a charity). Findings from multiple studies suggest that higher emotional dissonance serially influences perceived lack of control, emotional exhaustion, lowered sympathy for others’ feeling, and subsequently lower willingness to help others. when individuals are asked to recall their past experiences (...) of emotional dissonance, they expressed lack of control and emotional exhaustion (Study 3), lower sympathy for others’ feeling (Study 1, 3), and subsequently become less willing to help others both in their intention (Study 2A and 3) and with actual money (Study 2B). Further, this negative relationship is moderated by the display rules (i.e., surface acting vs. deep acting, Study 3). Managerial and public policy implications are discussed. (shrink)

We investigated the influence of personality and culture on effects of mortality salience over cultural worldview defense. We hypothesized that CWVD reactions to MS differ between Germany and Poland because of the higher conservatism of the latter country, and that they are moderated by action vs. state orientation. In this study German and Polish, participants were exposed either to MS or to a control condition. Punishment ratings to trivial offences and serious social transgressions were measures of CWVD. Results showed that (...) social transgressions in both conditions were more strongly punished in Poland than in Germany. Additionally, compared to the control condition, under MS action oriented punished serious transgressions more strongly in Germany whereas state oriented punished serious transgressions more strongly in Poland. That is, the effects of MS on CWVD are moderated by personality and culture. We interpret the opposite pattern of punishment to serious social transgressions given by action and state orientedin in Germany and Poland, respectively, according to the higher emotional autonomy of action-oriented persons in either culture. (shrink)

Individual realism asserts that our best scientific theories are (approximately) true. In contrast, selective realism asserts that only the stable posits of our best scientific theories are true. Hence, individual realism recommends that we accept more of what our best scientific theories say about the world than selective realism does. The more scientists believe what their theories say about the world, the more they are motivated to exercise their imaginations and think up new theories and experiments. Therefore, (...) class='Hi'>individual realism better fosters scientific creativity than selective realism. (shrink)

This paper is a critical analysis of David Rayfield's attempt to distinguish true from correct descriptions of human actions (Inquiry, Vol. 13 [1970], Nos. 1?2). It is argued that the analysis fails to do the job required of it for two reasons. First, the analysis of true descriptions is circular insofar as it turns on the notion of an ?unbound action?. Secondly, and independent of the charge of circularity, it is shown that the basis upon which Rayfield draws the true?correct (...) distinction leads to certain unacceptable consequences for action theory. (shrink)

Non-suicidal self-injury has consistently been associated with self-reported difficulties in emotion reactivity and the regulation of negative emotions; however, less is known about the accuracy of these self-reports or the reactivity and regulation of positive emotions. The present study sought to investigate differences between women with and without a history of NSSI on: self-reported general tendencies of negative and positive emotion reactivity, self-reported general tendencies of negative and positive emotion regulation, and emotion regulation reported in response to a positive and (...) negative mood induction. The sample consisted of 36 women with a recent history of NSSI within the last 2 years and a comparison group with no history of NSSI. Participants completed self-report measures of negative and positive emotion reactivity and regulation. In a separate session, participants underwent both a negative and positive mood induction using a counterbalanced design and reported their experienced emotions. Results from two-way MANOVAs and ANOVAs revealed those with a history of NSSI reported significantly greater difficulties in negative emotion reactivity and regulation than the no-NSSI comparison group; however, no group differences emerged in self-reported reactivity or regulation of positive emotions. In contrast, repeated measures ANOVAs on data from the mood induction task found no group differences in reactivity or regulation for either negative or positive emotions. These findings highlight the possibility that although individuals with a history of NSSI evaluate their ability to manage negative emotions as significantly worse than individuals with no history of self-injury, this may not reflect their actual emotion regulatory processes. (shrink)

If we accept both that human enhancement could produce beings with higher moral status than our own (i.e. supra-persons), and that this scenario may be detrimental to unenhanced persons, then there are still several ways that the creation of supra-persons could be defended. I will argue that some of these defences fail. Their justification for the permissibility or unlikelihood of harms to the unenhanced is weakened once we consider that those who enhance may be undermining their own individual interests. (...) Enhancements that are substantial enough to increase moral status may also be substantial enough to affect psychological continuity. Certain individual interests are sensitive to loses of psychological continuity. I will consider three scenarios: the creation of supra-persons within one generation, the enhancement of persons into supra-persons, and the generational replacement of persons by supra-persons. The arguments for the first scenario fail on intuitive grounds. A thorough consideration of individual interests undermines the arguments for the other two scenarios. I conclude that although the creation of drastically morally better persons may be desirable and likely to help realise most of what we currently value, this realisation is undermined by the fact that the beings enjoying this future scenario might not be our psychological continuants. (shrink)

This dissertation develops a reading of Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of agency and autonomy that centers on the notion of the acquired character. I argue for a non-homuncular functionalist reading of Schopenhauerian self-government. On my reading, to be self-governing in Schopenhauer’s sense is just for a certain organizational structure to obtain between one’s individual character and one’s motivation. This structure is put in place through the hard-fought achievement of acquiring genuine self-knowledge of one’s characteristic patterns of acting, evaluative commitments, and, (...) most importantly, one’s volitional necessities. This is the achievement of what he calls the 'acquired character'. My reading also stresses the importance of the phenomena of self-expression and sublimation for Schopenhauer's view of autonomy. I also explore the overlap between Schopenhauer's views and contemporary non-homuncular models of agency, particularly Harry Frankfurt’s hierarchical model of agency, on the one hand, and Michael E. Bratman’s planning theory of autonomous self-governance, on the other. Whereas others have been skeptical of the very idea of Schopenhauerian autonomy, I argue that these reservations rest on a failure to recognize the non-homuncular option. An exploration of contemporary philosophical work on agency helps make this point stick. In the final chapter, I propose that we can see Nietzsche's famous prescription that we ‘give style' to our character as carrying forward certain elements of Schopenhauer's view of autonomy, particularly its aesthetic dimensions. This accomplishes two things. First, it shows that Schopenhauer's influence on Nietzsche goes deeper into the latter's ethical thought than many tend to think. Second, it points towards an elaboration of the view of Schopenhauerian autonomy that I establish earlier on. With the aesthetic dimensions of agency in view, acquired character can be seen as a process through which an agent develops an individual style of acting; it is a process through which one comes to fully act within themselves by embodying their character, just as the best stage and screen actors do. (shrink)

Programming artificial intelligence to make fairness assessments of texts through top-down rules, bottom-up training, or hybrid approaches, has presented the challenge of defining cross-cultural fairness. In this paper a simple method is presented which uses vectors to discover if a verb is unfair or fair. It uses already existing relational social ontologies inherent in Word Embeddings and thus requires no training. The plausibility of the approach rests on two premises. That individuals consider fair acts those that they would be (...) willing to accept if done to themselves. Secondly, that such a construal is ontologically reflected in Word Embeddings, by virtue of their ability to reflect the dimensions of such a perception. These dimensions being: responsibility vs. irresponsibility, gain vs. loss, reward vs. sanction, joy vs. pain, all as a single vector. The paper finds it possible to quantify and qualify a verb as fair or unfair by calculating the cosine similarity of the said verb’s embedding vector against FairVec—which represents the above dimensions. We apply this to Glove and Word2Vec embeddings. Testing on a list of verbs produces an F1 score of 95.7, which is improved to 97.0. Lastly, a demonstration of the method’s applicability to sentence measurement is carried out. (shrink)

Accounts of act individuation have attempted to capture peoples’ pre-theoretic intuitions. Donald Davidson has argued that a multitude of action descriptions designate only one act, while Alvin Goldman has averred that each action description refers to a distinct act. Following on recent empirical studies, I subject these accounts of act individuation to experimentation. The data indicate that people distinguish between actions differently depending upon the moral valence of the outcomes. Thus, the assumption that a single account of act individuation applies (...) invariantly seems mistaken. (shrink)

The interpretation of Eth. Nic. C 1, and particularly of the notion of ``voluntariness'' and ``involuntariness'' is often distorted by the inappropriate overlap of questions deriving from modern moral philosophy. Firstly, this paper presents the scholarly debate on the topics frequently connected with the Aristotelian concepts of ἑκούσιον/ἀκούσιον (determinism/indeterminism, mixed acts and dirty hands theory, mixed acts vs. instrumental acts, role of circumstances, etc.). The next step is the analysis of the relevant passages of Eth. Nic. through (...) a close examination of the relationship between the notions of ``choice'' and ``voluntariness'': what is crucial for the voluntariness of an action is the individuation of the efficient cause. On this basis it is possible to clarify the role and the significance of mixed acts and of other kinds of actions described by Aristotle. Finally, the topics previously displayed are re-examined in order to shed some light on the distortions arising from the adoption of inadequate lens in interpreting ancient texts. (shrink)