According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan (...) Haidt. One important implication of Haidt’s model is that in giving reasons for their moral judgments people tend to confabulate – the reasons they give in attempting to explain their moral judgments are not really operative in producing those judgments. Moral reason-giving on Haidt’s view is generally a matter of post hoc confabulation. Against Haidt, we argue for a version of rationalism that we call ‘morphological rationalism.’ We label our version ‘morphological’ because according to it, the information contained in moral principles is embodied in the standing structure of a typical individual’s cognitive system, and this morphologically embodied information plays a causal role in the generation of particular moral judgments. The manner in which the principles play this role is via ‘proceduralization’ – such principles operate automatically. In contrast to Haidt’s intuitionism, then, our view does not imply that people’s moral reason-giving practices are matters of confabulation. In defense of our view, we appeal to what we call the ‘nonjarring’ character of the phenomenology of making moral judgments and of giving reasons for those judgments. (shrink)

According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan (...) Haidt. One important implication of Haidt’s model is that in giving reasons for their moral judgments people tend to confabulate – the reasons they give in attempting to explain their moral judgments are not really operative in producing those judgments. Moral reason-giving on Haidt’s view is generally a matter of post hoc confabulation. Against Haidt, we argue for a version of rationalism that we call ‘morphological rationalism.’ We label our version ‘morphological’ because according to it, the information contained in moral principles is embodied in the standing structure of a typical individual’s cognitive system, and this morphologically embodied information plays a causal role in the generation of particular moral judgments. The manner in which the principles play this role is via ‘proceduralization’ – such principles operate automatically. In contrast to Haidt’s intuitionism, then, our view does not imply that people’s moral reason-giving practices are matters of confabulation. In defense of our view, we appeal to what we call the ‘nonjarring’ character of the phenomenology of making moral judgments and of giving reasons for those judgments. (shrink)

The philosophers René Descartes (1596–1650), Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), Benedict Spinoza (1632–77), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) are grouped together as rationalists because they held that human beings possess a faculty of reason that produces knowledge independently of the senses. In this regard, they contrast with empiricist philosophers, such as John Locke and David Hume, who believed that all knowledge arises from the senses. The rationalists contended that proper use of reason would yield the first principles of metaphysics, the most basic (...) science of all. Metaphysics was also called “first philosophy,” and it took as its subject matter nothing less than the basic properties and principles of everything. For our purposes, it is important to note that the rationalists believed that metaphysics could provide foundations for specialized disciplines, including ethics and physics, and also medicine and other applied subjects. The rationalists and their followers developed theoretical positions of ambitious intellectual scope, ranging from metaphysical conclusions about the existence and nature of God to detailed theories of physical and physiological processes. Although they put great store in the faculty of reason for establishing overarching principles, they looked to observation and experience to provide data and evidence for their detailed theories. They took special interest in the metaphysics and physics of the human organism, and this led them to psychological topics concerning the characteristics and principles of animal behavior, the process of sense perception, the passions, and emotions, and appetites, the cognitive operations of the mind (including attention and understanding), and the relation between mental phenomena and bodily processes in the brain and sense organs. The various rationalists, but especially Descartes, made original contributions to these topics. After considering the character of psychology as a discipline in the seventeenth century, we will examine these contributions in turn. (shrink)

Jonathan Haidt ( 2001 ) advances the 'Social Intuitionist' account of moral judgment , which he presents as an alternative to rationalist accounts of moral judgment , hitherto dominant in psychology. Here I consider Haidt's anti-rationalism and the debate that it has provoked in moral psychology , as well as some anti-rationalist philosophical claims that Haidt and others have grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators. I will argue that although the case for anti-rationalism in (...) moral psychology based on the work of Haidt and his collaborators is plausible , a decisive case has yet to be made. It will require further experimental evidence before a decisive case could be made. My assessment of anti-rationalist philosophical arguments that are grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators is much more negative than this. I will argue that this body of empirical work is a very unpromising basis for such arguments. (shrink)

In his early experimental work with Suppes, Davidson adopted rationality assumptions, not as necessary constraints on interpretation, but as practical conceits in addressing methodological problems faced by experimenters studying decision making under uncertainty. Although the content of their theory has since been undermined, their methodological approach—a Galilean form of methodological rationalism—lives on in contemporary psychological research. This article draws on Max Weber’s verstehen to articulate an account of Galilean methodological rationalism; explains how anomalies faced by Davidson’s early (...) experimental work gave rise to his later, canonical claims about rationality and interpretation; and reclaims this Galilean framework for use in contemporary psychological research. (shrink)

In this paper, on the basis of psychological research concerning psychopathy, I argue against one claim a moral rationalist—such as Michael Smith —might make. First, I distinguish three rationalist claims the moral rationalist might make: the rationalists' conceptual claim, the rationalists' substantial claim, and the practicality requirement. Then, I go on to discuss some of the subtle relations between these claims. I argue that, if we have reason to reject the rationalists' substantial claim, this gives us prima facie reason (...) to reject the rationalists' conceptual claim as well, or else to accept the view that there are no substantial truths of morality. Next, I present evidence from psychological research on psychopaths, and argue that these considerations undermine the rationalists' substantial claim. Lastly, I consider a few replies on behalf of Smith, and conclude that they are not successful in defeating my arguments against the rationalists' substantial claim. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Epicurean Empiricism Critiques of Cartesianism Conclusion.

Based on an analysis of ten popular introductions to social psychology, we will show that Karl Popper's philosophy of ‘critical rationalism’ so far has had little to no traceable influence on the epistemology and practice of social psychology. If Popper is quoted or mentioned in the textbooks at all, the guiding principle of ‘falsificationism’ is reduced to a mere ‘falsifiability’ and some central elements of critical rationalism are left out – those that are incompatible with positivism and inductivism. (...) Echoing earlier attempts to introduce Popper to social psychology by Paul Meehl and Tom Pettigrew, we will argue that a discussing Popper's ideas in more depth could help social psychology to move forward in view of the ‘crisis of confidence’ that has emerged recently in view of the ‘Stapel affair’ and the reports of failures to replicate social psychological experiments in high-powered replication attempts. (shrink)

Debunking arguments typically attempt to show that a set of beliefs or other intensional mental states bear no appropriate explanatory connection to the facts they purport to be about. That is, a debunking argument will attempt to show that beliefs about p are not held because of the facts about p. Such beliefs, if true, would then only be accidentally so. Thus, their causal origins constitute an undermining defeater. Debunking arguments arise in various philosophical domains, targeting beliefs about morality, the (...) existence of God, logic, and others. They have also arisen in material-object metaphysics, often aimed at debunking common-sense ontology. And while most of these arguments feature appeals to ‘biological and cultural contingencies’ that are ostensibly responsible for our beliefs about which kinds of objects exist, few of them take a serious look at what those contingencies might actually be. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to remedy this by providing empirical substantiation for a key premise in these debunking arguments by examining data from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that support a ‘debunking explanation’ of our common-sense beliefs and intuitions about which objects exist. Second, to argue that such data also undermines a particular kind of rationalist defense of common-sense ontology, sometimes employed as a response to the debunking threat. (shrink)

The paper outlines the evolution of on-going meta-philosophical debates about intuitions, explains different notions of 'intuition' employed in these debates, and argues for the philosophical relevance of intuitions in an aetiological sense taken from cognitive psychology. On this basis, it advocates a new kind of methodological naturalism which it finds implicit, for instance, in the warrant project in experimental philosophy: a meta-philosophical naturalism that promotes the use of scientific methods in meta-philosophical investigations. This 'higher-order' naturalism is consistent with both methodological (...) naturalism and methodological rationalism about first-order philosophy, and can help us adjudicate between the two, in a piecemeal manner. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial (...) of rationalism. I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

Rationalist accounts of the development of folk-psychology maintain that the acquisition of this capacity is aided by special-purpose mechanisms rich in innate structure. Rationalists have typically maintained that false-belief understanding (FBU) emerges very early on, before the age of two. To explain why young children nonetheless fail the false-belief task, rationalists have suggested that they may have troubles expressing their FBU. Here I do two things. First, I argue that extant proposals about what might prevent children from expressing their FBU (...) cannot explain some of the relevant data. Second, I put forward a new rationalist proposal, the processing-time account, according to which young children fail because they cannot carry out all the required processing in the time available. I argue that the processing-time account overcomes the challenges extant rationalist accounts face while being compatible with the evidence in their support, thereby providing a compelling explanation of the development of FBU. (shrink)

Traditionally, attempts at resolving the problem of accounting for the possibility of human freedom against the background of determinism have assumed that the options available are to: endorse determinism and deny human freedom, deny determinism in order to make room for human freedom, or find a compatibilist reconciliation. Commonly, the problem is addressed from an 'externalist' perspective. In the dissertation, the issue is refocused upon the positions of 'internalists' such as Frankfurt, Watson, Taylor, and Wolf. Their compatibilist approaches emphasize the (...) importance of first person, psychological characteristics of agents as the salient determinants of human freedom. But each of these internalist approaches are found to be wanting. Consequently, the dissertation considers an alternative internalist view, that of Spinoza. I examine in detail Spinoza's concept of freedom, as it emerges from his overall metaphysical system, and note that his compatibilism not only affirms determinism, but further holds that a certain kind of necessity is a prerequisite to any coherent account of freedom. I then proceed to show that, by comparison with the views of the aforementioned contemporary compatibilists, only Spinoza's concept of freedom can account for a 'developmental' view of human nature, one which depicts the self as engaged in a process of liberation from the sort of psychological determinism which feeds upon ignorance. (shrink)

One of the liveliest areas in moral psychology in recent years has been research on the extent to which conscious reasoning leads to the formation of moral judgments. The goal of this chapter is to review and briefly assess three of the leading positions today on this topic - traditional rationalism, social intuitionism, and morphological rationalism - each of which has significant implications for moral epistemology.

I welcome many of the conclusions of May's book, but I offer a suggestion – and with it what I take to be a complementary strategy – concerning the core commitments of rationalism across the domains of moral psychology in the hopes of better illuminating why a rationalist picture of the mind can deliver us from pessimism.

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for (...) debates about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Reasons without Rationalism has two related parts, devoted to action theory and ethics, respectively. In the second part, I argue for a close connection between reasons for action and virtues of character. This connection is mediated by the idea of good practical thought and the disposition to engage in it. The argument relies on the following principle, which is intended as common ground: " Reasons: The fact that p is a reason for A to ϕ just in case A (...) has a collection of psychological states, C, such that the disposition to be moved to ϕ by C-and-the-belief-that- p is a good disposition of practical thought, and C contains no false beliefs."In effect, reasons are premises for episodes of sound practical thinking whose other conditions already …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 33.1 (2003) 3-22 [Access article in PDF] Rationalism in History Steven Crowell Mark Bevir. The Logic of the History of Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. [L] When Hegel spoke of history as the "slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed" [27], he wished his hearers to find satisfaction in the contemplation of a "reason" in (...) history that would redeem those sacrifices by explaining their necessity. A "logic" of history in this sense—a logic of the events themselves (res gestae) and not merely of discourses about them (historia rerum gestarum)—does not merely relate events to one another by means of a narrative in which they can be seen to make sense, but, going further, attributes necessity to these events by relating them to the (absolute) Idea. That this "Idea or Reason is the True," that "nothing but it... manifests itself in the world," is not, Hegel reminds us, something established historically but "has been proved in philosophy" [11]. Seen thus, post-Hegelian historicism begins the moment that the Idea of history becomes the "history of ideas"—that is, the moment when reason becomes merely the thematic object, rather than the generative subject, of history. In its many forms—Begriffsgeschichte, intellectual history, history of worldviews, Ideologiekritik, history of mentalités, and so on—the history of ideas bears the traces of its birth in the retreat of speculative philosophy of history's robust rationalism, whether of the idealistic Hegelian or the materialist Marxian variety. Under such conditions, to announce a "logic" of the history of ideas is to link historiography with philosophy in a way that might surprise those many who have grown accustomed to thinking that the latter is dead and the former is anything but logical.For "history" has been the shibboleth under which contemporary critical discourse has sought to free itself from the "philosophical" model of knowing that dominated earlier times. If at the outset of the twentieth century the new currents in European philosophy—Husserlian phenomenology and Russellian analysis—were militantly antihistorical, by century's end only the latter remained so. The former very quickly spawned or influenced a host of offshoots (existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, genealogy) with little in common but the belief that philosophy is thoroughly historical. When, in the guise of "theory," critical discourse in fields such as literature, cultural studies, feminism, or postcolonial studies draws close to philosophy, then, it is generally a philosophy that sees itself entangled in history, no longer capable of "master narratives" or logics because suspicious of its own past. Significantly, this skepticism has made itself felt in the discipline of history itself, where the theory of historiography is increasingly integrated into a general postmodern, postphilosophical, model of cultural production that emphasizes politics or poetics over reason, rhetoric over cognition.1 Mark Bevir's proposal for a logic of the history of ideas is a protest against such [End Page 3] integration: historical inquiry—whose principles provide the basis not only for a "general logic of history" but also for a "theory of culture" as such [L 316]—is a rational enterprise that yields objective knowledge guided by the regulative idea of truth as correspondence to a fixed historical reality.There is scarcely a debate in historiography—and in the philosophy of mind, language, and science, as it pertains to such debates—about which Bevir does not have something important to say, but reduced to its bare outline Bevir's book lays out the elements, modes of justification, and modes of explanation that are normative for the practice of the history of ideas. At its basis is the philosophical view, introduced in chapter one and successively developed in subsequent chapters, that the "folk-psychological" concepts we use to understand and explain human behavior—above all, the concept of rationality—are indispensable in the history of ideas as well. A central element of the practice of intellectual history, for example, is the concept of "meaning," and in chapter two, against challenges from contextualists, conventionalists, and others who reject intentionalism, Bevir argues that... (shrink)

Experimental philosophy is one of the most exciting and controversial philosophical movements today. This book explores how it is reshaping thought about philosophical method. Experimental philosophy imports experimental methods and findings from psychology into philosophy. These fresh resources can be used to develop and defend both armchair methods and naturalist approaches, on an empirical basis. This outstanding collection brings together leading proponents of this new meta-philosophical naturalism, from within and beyond experimental philosophy. They explore how the empirical study of philosophically (...) relevant intuition and cognition transforms traditional philosophical approaches and facilitates fresh ones. Part One examines important uses of traditional "armchair" methods which are not threatened by experimental work and develops empirically informed accounts of such methods that can potentially stand up to experimental scrutiny. Part Two analyses different uses and rationales of experimental methods in several areas of philosophy and addresses the key methodological challenges to experimental philosophy: Do its experiments target the intuitions that matter in philosophy? And how can they support conclusions about the rights and wrongs of philosophical views? Essential reading for students of experimental philosophy and metaphilosophy, _Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism_ will also interest students and researchers in related areas such as epistemology and the philosophies of language, perception, mind and action, science and psychology. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that psychopaths’ notoriously immoral behavior is due to affective rather than rational deficits. This evidence could be taken to show that, contrary to moral rationalism, moral norms are not norms of reason. Rationalists could reply either that psychopaths’ behavior is in fact primarily due to rational deficits or that affects are involved in responding to rational norms. Drawing on the work of Antonio Damasio and colleagues, I argue the latter is the better defense of moral rationalism.

Studies have shown ethics education has not systematically improved the moral reasoning of business students and professionals and, therefore, its effectiveness should be seen as deeply questionable. Business ethics education has limited effect, in part, because it rests on rationalistic traditions within normative ethics, business theory, and cognitive psychology. Emphasis is usually placed on student’s rationally thinking about issues as a way of improving their critical analysis and reasoning skills. Yet by focusing primarily on its cognitive dimension, ethics education has (...) tended to underdetermine the importance of social interaction in moral development. As an alternative to traditional business ethics education, using the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, I argue, that peer influence through a dialogical process is a better way to enhance and improve the moral reasoning and judgement of individuals. More specifically, small-group dialogue with peers encourages deep reflection about business dilemmas and has a direct influence on how one thinks about ethics. (shrink)

Studies have shown ethics education has not systematically improved the moral reasoning of business students and professionals and, therefore, its effectiveness should be seen as deeply questionable. Business ethics education has limited effect, in part, because it rests on rationalistic traditions within normative ethics, business theory, and cognitive psychology. Emphasis is usually placed on student’s rationally thinking about issues as a way of improving their critical analysis and reasoning skills. Yet by focusing primarily on its cognitive dimension, ethics education has (...) tended to underdetermine the importance of social interaction in moral development. As an alternative to traditional business ethics education, using the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, I argue, that peer influence through a dialogical process is a better way to enhance and improve the moral reasoning and judgement of individuals. More specifically, small-group dialogue with peers encourages deep reflection about business dilemmas and has a direct influence on how one thinks about ethics. (shrink)

My dissertation covers a number of different topics in Kant scholarship, but is driven by one central question: how do our sense-based capacities to perceive, desire, and feel relate to our capacity to reason? I take the answer to this question to be key to understanding much about Kant’s philosophical system. For topics as diverse as the role that sensation plays in practical knowledge, the character of moral motivation, the nature of evil, or Kant’s theory that we are morally required (...) to believe in our immortality and God’s existence, I claim that the correct reading turns on a novel approach to the relation between our rational and sensitive capacities. To properly understand this relation, we must overcome the deeply entrenched thought that Kant inherits his conception of reason from the rationalists, and his conception of sense experience from the empiricists. This would be to adopt a fundamentally dualistic philosophy, on which reason and the senses are independently intelligible and sometimes even diametrically opposed. On Kant’s actual view, our capacities to perceive, feel, and desire are metaphysically interdependent with and thus not intelligible in isolation from our capacity to reason. Developing the details of this more unified position leads to satisfying philosophical accounts of a number of controversial issues in Kant scholarship that have suffered under a dualistic framework. (shrink)

This paper argues that essential features of Feyerabend's philosophy, namely his radicalization of critical rationalism and his turn to relativism, could be understood better in the light of his engagement with early Greek thought. In contrast to his earlier, Popperian views he came to see the Homeric worldview as a genuine alternative, which was not falsified by the Presocratics. Unlike socio–psychological and externalist accounts my reading of his published and unpublished material suggests that his alternative reconstruction of the (...) ancient beginnings of the Western scientific tradition motivate and justify his moderate Protagorean relativism. (shrink)

Originally published in 1982, this was an extensive and up-to-date review of research into the psychology of deductive reasoning, Jonathan Evans presents an alternative theoretical framework to the rationalist approach which had dominated much of the published work in this field at the time. The review falls into three sections. The first is concerned with elementary reasoning tasks, in which response latency is the prime measure of interest. The second and third sections are concerned with syllogistic and propositional reasoning respectively, (...) in which interest has focused on the explanation of frequently observed logical errors. In an extended discussion it is argued that reasoning processes are content specific, and give little indication of the operation of any underlying system of logical competence. Finally, a dual process theory of reasoning, with broad implications and connections with other fields of psychology, is elaborated and assessed in the light of recent evidence. (shrink)

Most current theories of meaning and mental content accept externalism. One of its forceful exponents is Ruth Garrett Millikan. She argues that externalism leads to the abandonment of "the last myth of the given", that is, of the idea that identity of meaning and mental content is somehow unproblematically given to us, and that we can easily recognize the sameness of meaning and mental content. If one refuses such a "mythical" giveness or meaning rationalism, one has to admit that (...) there is no logical possibility known a priori . The paper tries to show that even if one abandons meaning rationalism one can still hold that there are logical possibilities known a priori . The claim is defended by arguing that a priori knowledge is not completely independent from experience and does not demand the absolute transparency of meaning from the first-person point of view. A priori knowledge requires only a priori justification, that is, such a justification that is based merely on relations between meanings or contents. (shrink)

Ratonalist Pragmatism argues that our interest in truth—our rational nature as practical and theoretical beings—forms us as a community of mutually recognizing truth seekers and creates the possibility of objective moral knowledge.

Kieran Setiya begins Reasons Without Rationalism by outlining and arguing for a schema in terms of which he thinks we best understand the nature of normative reasons for action. This is: " Reasons: The fact that p is a reason for A to ϕ just in case A has a collection of psychological states, C, such that the disposition to be moved to ϕ by C-and-the-belief-that-p is a good disposition of practical thought, and C contains no false beliefs. (...) " As Setiya points out, Reasons contrasts with both the ‘advice’ model of normative reasons , which is the view that I myself prefer , and the ‘imitative’ model , preferred by the likes of McDowell .The intuitive idea behind Reasons should be clear enough. Insofar as normative reasons are normative, they are considerations that would justify an agent's acting in a certain way in certain circumstances: there is, thus, a justificatory dimension. But insofar as they are reasons, they are considerations on which the agent might act in those very circumstances: there is thus an explanatory dimension as well. Part of the attraction of Reasons is that it tells us why the considerations that are normative reasons have these two features: a consideration is a normative reason only if, given other things that the agent believes and desires, the disposition to be moved by a belief concerning that consideration is itself a good disposition of practical thought .Reasons is, however, just a schema. …. (shrink)

The post-truth world threatens our collective commitment to rationality but must not become the norm. Synthesis of the scholarship on anti-intellectualism and personal attributes informs educational practices to promote development of student's rational mind-set and rationalist identity necessary to combat anti-rationalism and the post-truth world.

In Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind, Joshua May argues successfully that many claims about the causal influence of affect on moral judgment are overblown. But the findings he cites are compatible with many of the key arguments of philosophical sentimentalists. His account of rationalism, in turn, relies on an overly broad notion of inference, and leaves open crucial questions about how we reason to moral conclusions.

May interprets the prevalence of non-emotional moral intuitions as indicating support for rationalism. However, research in developmental psychology indicates that the mechanisms underlying these intuitions are not always rational in nature. Specifically, automatic intuitions can emerge passively, through processes such as evolutionary preparedness and enculturation. Although these intuitions are not always emotional, they are not clearly indicative of reason.

This collection of essays serves both as an introduction to Ruth Millikan’s much-discussed volume Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories and as an extension and application of Millikan’s central themes, especially in the philosophy of psychology. The title essay discusses meaning rationalism and argues that rationality is not in the head, indeed, that there is no legitimate interpretation under which logical possibility and necessity are known a priori. In other essays, Millikan clarifies her views on the nature of mental (...) representation, explores whether human thought is a product of natural selection, examines the nature of behavior as studied by the behavioral sciences, and discusses the issues of individualism in psychology, psychological explanation, indexicality in thought, what knowledge is, and the realism/antirealism debate. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1 In Defense of Proper Functions 2 Propensities, Exaptations, and the Brain 3 Thoughts without Laws 4 Biosemantics 5 On Mentalese Orthography, Part 1 6 Compare and Contrast Dretske, Fodor, and Millikan on Teleosemantics 7 What Is Behavior? A Philosophical Essay on Ethology and Individualism in Psychology, Part 1 8 The Green Grass Growing All Around: A Philosophical Essay on Ethology and Individualism in Psychology, Part 2 9 Explanation in Biopsychology 10 Metaphysical Antirealism? 11 Truth Rules, Hoverflies, and the Kripke-Wittgenstein Paradox 12 Naturalist Reflections on Knowledge 13 The Myth of the Essential Indexical 14 White Queen Psychology; or, The Last Myth of the Given References Index. (shrink)

A popular approach to monothematic delusions in the recent literature has been to argue that monothematic delusions involve broadly rational responses to highly unusual experiences. Campbell calls this the empiricist approach to monothematic delusions, and argues that it cannot account for the links between meaning and rationality. In place of empiricism Campbell offers a rationalist account of monothematic delusions, according to which delusional beliefs are understood as Wittgensteinian framework propositions. We argue that neither Campbell's attack on empiricism nor his rationalist (...) alternative to empiricism is successful. (shrink)

Philosophers often mention Friedrich Schiller as the author of a famous epigram taking aim at Kant’s account of moral motivation: Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. To this, the answer is given: Surely, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, And then with aversion do what your duty enjoins. These joking lines capture a natural objection to Kant’s rationalist (...) picture of moral motivation, especially as it appears in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Schiller himself, however, intended his poem as a caricature of Kant’s view, reserving his considered critique of Kant’s practical philosophy for his extended treatise ‘On Grace and Dignity’. It is in this major work that Schiller begins his debate with Kant about the aesthetic aspect of morality, sets out a systematic account of his own ethics, and argues for an account of character according to which the virtuous person is inclined to do her duty and takes pleasure in moral action. This essay aims to highlight the importance of Schiller’s ‘On Grace and Dignity’, which is a valuable resource in relation to contemporary debates about Kant’s moral psychology. Section 1 outlines the main features of Schiller’s concerns with Kantian rationalism. Section 2 surveys a number of recent critical discussions of Schiller’s interpretation of Kant. Finally, Section 3 concludes with some observations about the historical and broader philosophical significance of ‘On Grace and Dignity’. (shrink)

Language development is one of the major battle grounds within the humanities and sciences. This book presents, for the first time, an impartial account of the three dominant theories of language development. Written to be accessible for those within developmental psychology, philosophy, and linguistics, the book provides the reader with the information they need in order make up their own mind about this much debated issue.

The purpose of this article is to make visible Max Scheler's great contribution to philosophical research on virtues and values, and to re-integrate it into the current discourse. Christoph Halbig's marginal reference to Scheler provides a good opportunity for this. Since both authors pursue completely different objectives, the question arises as to how much of Halbig's approach to a theory of action can be reconciled with Scheler's personalist understanding of virtue. While Halbig seeks criteria for assessing the actions of others, (...) Scheler points to the empowerment supplied by virtue itself. The author argues that Scheler already anticipated some ideas, which has led to a new awareness of virtues in contemporary psychology. (shrink)

It is a commonly accepted view that men think to live, and do not live to think, that conation, and not cognition, is the primary object of living. Impression, affect, and expression constitute the complete psychic process. The term philosophy, the love of wisdom, also suggests that man's thought has a practical and not a theoretical objective. In this connection, however, two errors must be avoided: on the one hand an exaltation of the intellect as in rationalism, and on (...) the other hand a depreciation of the intellect as in pragmatism. (shrink)

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche presents passion as constituting human agency. He encountered this Humean view in Schopenhauer, and recognized its explanatory advantages over Platonic and Kantian rationalism. Zarathustra's poetic speeches anticipate and address contemporary objections to the view that passion constitutes agency. "On the Despisers of the Body" explains why understanding the self as constituted by passion provides better explanations of reasoning, value judgment, and the unity of the self than Christine Korsgaard's neo-Kantian view. "On Enjoying and Suffering (...) the Passions" explains why understanding virtues as constituted by passions provides a better explanation of moral phenomenology than John McDowell's rationalism. (shrink)

This paper argues that emotions can play an epistemic role as justifiers of evaluative beliefs. It also presents the heuristics theory of emotion as an empirically informed explanation of how emotions can play such a role and why they in practice usefully complement non-affective evaluative judgments. As such, the heuristics theory represents a form of moderate rationalism: it acknowledges that emotions can be epistemically valuable, even privileged in some sense, but denies that they would be uniquely privileged. I argue (...) that judgments and emotional responses pick out different but correlated kinds of evaluative properties and therefore emotional responses and non-affective evaluative judgments play mutually complementary rather than mutually exclusive roles. It follows that emotional responses can be legitimately drawn upon to support evaluative beliefs, but they lack supreme epistemic authority. (shrink)

It is a commonly accepted view that men think to live, and do not live to think, that conation, and not cognition, is the primary object of living. Impression, affect, and expression constitute the complete psychic process. The term philosophy, the love of wisdom, also suggests that man's thought has a practical and not a theoretical objective. In this connection, however, two errors must be avoided: on the one hand an exaltation of the intellect as in rationalism, and on (...) the other hand a depreciation of the intellect as in pragmatism. (shrink)

'Professor Vyse presents the historical, sociocultural, and psychological basis for superstition in a clear, interesting, and even entertaining way. What easily could have been a dry, over-intellectualized tome is, instead, a gem of a book that engaginly tells the story of what science has learned about superstition, of how pervasive and powerful superstition can be, and of why critical thinking skills are so important in everyday life.' -Douglas A. Bernstein, Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 'Many books deal (...) with irrational beliefs but have little to say about why people cling to superstitions...and what can be done to stem the rising tide of interest in pseudoscience and the paranormal. Professor Vyse has filled this vacuum with a book as entertaining as it is enlightening.' -Martin Gardner 'This book can be rewritten or updated every fifteen years, I believe, since new claptrap presents itself every day. And there are always victims out there ready to surrender their common sense for a talisman...or a ritual that puts them 'in' with their peers and gives them the warm glow of being avant-garde. Meanwhile, I urge the rationalists out there to snap up this book when they see it. It may be heading for the bonfires.' -James Randi, The James Randi Educational Foundation, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 'Employing scientific techniques and utilizing hard facts, Vyse shows how silly superstition really is.... This is a highly informative book, dealing with everything from chain letters to lucky charms to the lottery system.' -Amazon 'Vyse presents plenty of uncomfortable truths about the way most of us think, and plumbs a vast literary repetoire ranging from Chaucer and Melville through Leon Festinger to get us into his corner.' -Voice Literary Supplement 'An engaging introduction to psychology focused on a topic, superstition, of inherent interest to us all.' -Valerie M. Chase, The Boston Book Review. (shrink)