This chapter presents the advantages of the use of functional regions of interest along with its specific concerns, and provides a reference to Karl J. Friston related to the subject. Functionally defined ROI help to test hypotheses about the cognitive functions of particular regions of the brain. fROI are useful for specifying brain locations and investigating separable components of the mind. The chapter provides an overview of the common and uncommon misconceptions about fROI related to assumptions of homogeneity, factorial designs (...) versus independent localizers, a summary measure, and the naming of fROI. (shrink)

Language has been shown to play a key role in the development of a child’s theory of mind, but its role in adult belief reasoning remains unclear. One recent study used verbal and nonverbal interference during a false-belief task to show that accurate belief reasoning in adults necessarily requires language (Newton & de Villiers, 2007). The strength of this inference depends on the cognitive processes that are matched between the verbal and nonverbal inference tasks. Here, we matched the two interference (...) tasks in terms of their effects on spatial working memory. We found equal success on false-belief reasoning during both verbal and nonverbal interference, suggesting that language is not specifically necessary for adult theory of mind. (shrink)

Moral judgment depends critically on theory of mind, reasoning about mental states such as beliefs and intentions. People assign blame for failed attempts to harm and offer forgiveness in the case of accidents. Here we use fMRI to investigate the role of ToM in moral judgment of harmful vs. helpful actions. Is ToM deployed differently for judgments of blame vs. praise? Participants evaluated agents who produced a harmful, helpful, or neutral outcome, based on a harmful, helpful, or neutral intention; participants (...) made blame and praise judgments. In the right temporo-parietal junction, and, to a lesser extent, the left TPJ and medial prefrontal cortex, the neural response reflected an interaction between belief and outcome factors, for both blame and praise judgments: The response in these regions was highest when participants delivered a negative moral judgment, i.e., assigned blame or withheld praise, based solely on the agent's intent. These results show enhanced attention to mental states for negative moral verdicts based exclusively on mental state information. (shrink)

Contemporary moral psychology has focused on the notion of a universal moral sense, robust to individual and cultural differences. Yet recent evidence has revealed individual differences in the psychological processes for moral judgment: controlled cognition, mental-state reasoning, and emotional responding. We discuss this evidence and its relation to cross-cultural diversity in morality.

In this commentary, we ask when rationalization is most likely to occur and to not occur, and about where to expect, and how to measure, its benefits.

Although a second-person neuroscience has high ecological validity, the extent to which a second- versus third-person neuroscience approach fundamentally alters neural patterns of activation requires more careful investigation. Nonetheless, we are hopeful that this new avenue will prove fruitful in significantly advancing our understanding of typical and atypical social cognition.

Moral judgments, we expect, ought not to depend on luck. A person should be blamed only for actions and outcomes that were under the person’s control. Yet often, moral judgments appear to be influenced by luck. A father who leaves his child by the bath, after telling his child to stay put and believing that he will stay put, is judged to be morally blameworthy if the child drowns (an unlucky outcome), but not if his child stays put and doesn’t (...) drown. Previous theories of moral luck suggest that this asymmetry reflects primarily the influence of unlucky outcomes on moral judgments. In the current study, we use behavioral methods and fMRI to test an alternative: these moral judgments largely reflect participants’ judgments of the agent’s beliefs. In “moral luck” scenarios, the unlucky agent also holds a false belief. Here, we show that moral luck depends more on false beliefs than bad outcomes. We also show that participants with false beliefs are judged as having less justified beliefs and are therefore judged as more morally blameworthy. The current study lends support to a rationalist account of moral luck: moral luck asymmetries are driven not by outcome bias primarily, but by mental state assessments we endorse as morally relevant, i.e. whether agents are justified in thinking that they won’t cause harm. (shrink)

Simulation theory accounts of mind-reading propose that the observer generates a mental state that matches the state of the target and then uses this state as the basis for an attribution of a similar state to the target. The key proposal is thus that mechanisms that are primarily used online, when a person experiences a kind of mental state, are then co-opted to run Simulations of similar states in another person. Here I consider the neuroscientific evidence for this view. I (...) argue that there is substantial evidence for co-opted mechanisms, leading from one individual’s mental state to a matching state in an observer, but there is no evidence that the output of these co-opted mechanisms serve as the basis for mental state attributions. There is also substantial evidence for attribution mechanisms that serve as the basis for mental state attributions, but there is no evidence that these mechanisms receive their input from co-opted mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper presents the Rational Action, Noisy Choice for Habituation (RANCH) model. The model was evaluated with adult looking time collected from a paradigm analogous to the infant habituation paradigm. And the model captured key patterns of looking time documented in developmental research: habituation and dishabituation.

When we judge an action as morally right or wrong, we rely on our capacity to infer the actor's mental states. Here, we test the hypothesis that the right temporoparietal junction, an area involved in mental state reasoning, is necessary for making moral judgments. In two experiments, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt neural activity in the RTPJ transiently before moral judgment and during moral judgment. In both experiments, TMS to the RTPJ led participants to rely less on the (...) actor's mental states. A particularly striking effect occurred for attempted harms : Relative to TMS to a control site, TMS to the RTPJ caused participants to judge attempted harms as less morally forbidden and more morally permissible. Thus, interfering with activity in the RTPJ disrupts the capacity to use mental states in moral judgment, especially in the case of attempted harms. (shrink)

Is the basis of criminality an act that causes harm, or an act undertaken with the belief that one will cause harm? The present study takes a cognitive neuroscience approach to investigating how information about an agent’s beliefs and an action’s conse- quences contribute to moral judgment. We build on prior devel- opmental evidence showing that these factors contribute differ- entially to the young child’s moral judgments coupled with neurobiological evidence suggesting a role for the right tem- poroparietal junction (RTPJ) (...) in belief attribution. Participants read vignettes in a 2 2 design: protagonists produced either a negative or neutral outcome based on the belief that they were causing the negative outcome (‘‘negative’’ belief) or the neutral outcome (‘‘neutral’’ belief). The RTPJ showed significant activation above baseline for all four conditions but was modulated by an interaction between belief and outcome. Specifically, the RTPJ response was highest for cases of attempted harm, where protag- onists were condemned for actions that they believed would cause harm to others, even though the harm did not occur. The results not only suggest a general role for belief attribution during moral judgment, but also add detail to our understanding of the inter- action between these processes at both the neural and behavioral levels. (shrink)

In daily life, perceivers often need to predict and interpret the behavior of group agents, such as corporations and governments. Although research has investigated how perceivers reason about individual members of particular groups, less is known about how perceivers reason about group agents themselves. The present studies investigate how perceivers understand group agents by investigating the extent to which understanding the ‘mind’ of the group as a whole shares important properties and processes with understanding the minds of individuals. Experiment 1 (...) demonstrates that perceivers are sometimes willing to attribute a mental state to a group as a whole even when they are not willing to attribute that mental state to any of the individual members of the group, suggesting that perceivers can reason about the beliefs and desires of group agents over and above those of their individual members. Experiment 2 demonstrates that the degree of activation in brain regions associated with attributing mental states to individuals—i.e., brain regions associated with mentalizing or theory-of-mind, including the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and precuneus—does not distinguish individual from group targets, either when reading statements about those targets' mental states (directed) or when attributing mental states implicitly in order to predict their behavior (spontaneous). Together, these results help to illuminate the processes that support understanding group agents themselves. (shrink)

What is the impact of science on philosophy? In “Experiments in Ethics”, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses this question for morality and ethics. Appiah suggests that scientific results may undermine moral intuitions by undermining our confidence in the actual sources of our intuitions, or by invalidating our factual assumptions about the causes of human behavior. Appiah worries that scientific results showing situational causes on human behavior force us to abandon the intuition, formalized in virtue ethics, that what matters is “who you (...) are on the inside”. In this review, we agree with Appiah that scientific results at once force and do not force us to abandon this intuition. We also propose that Appiah’s worry is due in part to an over-simplified conception of “internal causes”, shared widely among scientists and philosophers. By re-introducing the true richness of internal causes invoked in moral judgments, we hope to relax the tension between scientific results and moral intuitions. Ultimately, we propose that science can undermine and constrain but cannot affirm our commitment to specific moral intuitions. (shrink)

Group representations based on recursive utilities can be used to derive the same predictions as Pietraszewski in conflict situations. Additionally, these representations generalize to non-conflict situations, asymmetric relationships, and represent the stakes in a conflict. However, both proposals fail to represent asymmetries of power and responsibility and to account for generalizations from specific observed individuals to collections of non-observed individuals.

Jild-i 1: Muntakhab-i ās̲ār-i: Sant Agūstīn, tarjumah-ʼi Muḥammad Taqī Bahrāmī Ḥarrān; Tūmās Akvīnās, tarjumah-ʼi Manūchihr Buzurgmihr; Bārūkh Ispīnūzā, tarjumah-ʼi Abū Ṭālib Ṣārimī; Bilz Pāskāl, tarjumah-ʼi Ḥusayn Kasmāʼī, va muntakhabātī az: Ūpānīshādhā, Dimāpādā, Sūrāngāmāsūtrā, Bhāgavat Gītāyā tarjumah-ʼi Riz̤ā Ṣaddūqī --.

1 Some philosophers defend the thesis that women are adult human females. Call this the adult human female thesis (AHF). There are two versions of this thesis—one modal and one definitional. Accord...

Realist ideology critique (RIC) is a strand of political realism recently developed in response to concerns that realism is biased toward the status quo. RIC aims to debunk an individual's belief that a social institution is legitimate by revealing that the belief is caused by that very same institution. Despite its growing prominence, RIC has received little critical attention. In this article, I buck this trend. First, I improve on contemporary accounts of RIC by clarifying its status and the role (...) of motivated reasoning. Second, I show that realist ideology critics face a dilemma: either their account makes deeply implausible epistemological assumptions, or they temper its epistemology at the expense of rendering it toothless. I argue for each horn in turn before revealing the dilemma to be a false one by making a novel distinction between varying strengths of RIC based on their underlying epistemological assumptions. I propose Moderate RIC as a solution: upon discovering that one reason for your belief that a social institution is legitimate is likely malignantly epistemically circular, the belief should undergo further epistemic testing. I respond to three potential objections and suggest that Moderate RIC would make a fruitful addition to political theorists' methodological toolkit. (shrink)

I provide a critical interpretation of Morgenröthe: Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile that identifies the key philosophical work done by Nietzsche in this text, as well as presenting the text as a type of medical narrative. I show how Nietzsche engages with three main questions, drawing thematic connections between themes of physical and psychological health and of ethics, in order to develop a foundation for his critical transvaluation project: First, what is the nature of, and relationship between psycho-physiological and cultural (...) health? Second, by which method of critical engagement may our health be diagnosed and promoted? And third, what virtues are required for such work? (shrink)

This is the first book to explore the role of quotation in modern Jewish thought. It shows how quotation is the binding tissue that links language and thought, modernity and tradition, religion and secularism as a way of being in the world.

Subject perspectives : the missing element in research ethics -- Personal knowledge and study participation -- The everyday ethics of human research -- The hidden world of subjects : rule-breaking in clinical trials -- Participants as partners in genetic research -- Terminally ill patients and the right to try experimental drugs -- Embedded ethics in developing country research -- Research subjects as literary subjects -- How to hear subjects.

Realist ideology critique (RIC) is a strand of political realism recently developed in response to concerns that realism is biased toward the status quo. RIC aims to debunk an individual's belief that a social institution is legitimate by revealing that the belief is caused by that very same institution. Despite its growing prominence, RIC has received little critical attention. In this article, I buck this trend. First, I improve on contemporary accounts of RIC by clarifying its status and the role (...) of motivated reasoning. Second, I show that realist ideology critics face a dilemma: either their account makes deeply implausible epistemological assumptions, or they temper its epistemology at the expense of rendering it toothless. I argue for each horn in turn before revealing the dilemma to be a false one by making a novel distinction between varying strengths of RIC based on their underlying epistemological assumptions. I propose Moder-ate RIC as a solution: upon discovering that one reason for your belief that a social institution is legitimate is likely malignantly epistemically circular, the belief should undergo further epistemic testing. I respond to three potential objections and suggest that Moderate RIC would make a fruitful addition to political theorists' methodological toolkit. (shrink)

Th is chapter outlines the experiences of non-consented vaginal examinations that women have shared with Birthrights and the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS). It gives a flavour of the issues that arise in cases brought to our attention, the impact on women who have to live with these experiences, and the lack of opportunity for proper redress faced by women. This chapter uses case studies to illustrate the experiences which lead women to seek support from AIMS and (...) Birthrights. These are real case studies: real women. They are almost certainly the tip of the iceberg. As this chapter will show, one issue with vaginal examinations is that women oft en do not know that they can decline consent, and/or do not feel confident in doing so. Th ere are no statistics held on the number of women who experience non-consented vaginal examinations but, with a system that includes vaginal examinations within standard maternity care, Birthrights and AIMS are certain that many more cases exist than those which have come to our attention. (shrink)

Argues that many popular approaches to questions of social justice are illiberal and offers an alternative vision for social justice based on liberal principles, adapted from the Wall Street Journal bestseller Cynical Theories.

The absent Arendt -- Arendt reading Aristotle -- Arendt reading Kant -- Arendt relating to Karl Jaspers -- Arendt thinking through Heidegger -- Arendt along with the existentialists -- Arendt as atypical -- Arendt in anticipation.

Can films philosophize rather than simply represent philosophical ideas developed outside of the cinematic medium? Taking up this question crucial to the emergent field of film philosophy, this book argues that the films of the American avant-garde do "do" philosophy and illuminates the ethical and political stakes of their aesthetic interventions. The book traces the avant-garde's philosophy by developing a history and theory of its investment in dimensional, conceptual, and material in-betweens, clarifying how this cinema's reflections on the creation and (...) reception of images construct an ethics of perception itself, a responsibility to perpetuate thought in an enduring re-encounter with the world and with meaning's unfinished production. This entails the avant-garde's locating of cinema's-and thought's-ends or meanings in their means, and their advancement of an image of truth that is made rather than found that unites their films with the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ralph Waldo Emerson who believed the "journey's end is found in every step of the road" (Cavell). Rectifying film-philosophy's neglect of the American avant-garde, the book demonstrates how rather than showing their interest in the revelation of authoritative truths, the avant-garde's interest in the re-encounter and review of the seen and known emerges from an American Transcendentalist tradition that opposes such notions. Sheehan reads the avant-garde's interest in the contingencies of spectatorial experience as also an extension of Pragmatism's commitment to replacing the authority of a priori knowledge with that of individual experience. She also shows how Emerson's influence on Friedrich Nietzsche connects the American avant-garde's philosophies to Deleuze's time-image, premised largely upon Nietzsche's "powers of the false.". (shrink)

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: transformation, potential, futures -- Screening affect : images, representational thinking and the actualization of the virtual -- Bringing the image to life : interactive mirrors and intensive experience -- Becoming different : makeover television, proximity and immediacy -- Immanent measure : interaction, attractors and the multiple temporalities of online dieting -- Pre-empting the future : obesity, prediction and change4life -- Conclusion : transforming images : sociology, the future and the virtual -- Bibliography -- Index.

In 1997, when Oregon became the first U.S. jurisdiction authorizing medical aid in dying (MAID), its law included a requirement that patients be legal residents of the state. Other U.S. jurisdictions legalizing MAID followed Oregon in adopting residency requirements. Recent litigation challenges the legality, as well as the justification, for such requirements. Facing such challenges, Oregon and Vermont eliminated their MAID residency requirements. More states could follow this move, for, in certain circumstances, the U.S. Constitution's privileges and immunities clause protects (...) citizens' right to travel to secure medical care. Policy considerations could also motivate states to reexamine whether such requirements are justified in light of existing evidence of how MAID laws have been applied. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In January 2014, seven‐year‐old Charlotte Benjamin wrote a letter to LEGO in which she described a lack of LEGO options for girls. Charlotte's letter has since gone viral. Many critics of the LEGO Friends theme have cited it in articles and blog posts about how this girls theme reinforces negative gender stereotypes. LEGO introduced the Friends theme in early 2012 explicitly as the "girls theme" to replace the unsuccessful LEGO Belville theme. Many fans of LEGO found the gender imbalance unfortunate, (...) because, as studies indicate, playing with blocks, in particular in structural play, can significantly enhance spatial and mathematical skills. LEGO's solution was to create a theme in which purple and pink colors dominate the fictional place: Heartlake City. LEGO also introduced a new kind of figure: the mini‐doll. The mini‐doll is different from the traditional LEGO minifigures in being less blocky, more styled and taller; it is also a bit more feminine in appearance. (shrink)

Rebecca Farinas takes seven major figures from the American philosophical canon and examines their relationship with an artistic or scientific interlocutor. In so doing, she provides a unique insight into the origins of American philosophy and, through case studies such as the friendship between Alain Locke and the biologist E.E. Just and the collaboration between Jane Addams and George Herbert Mead, sheds new light on these thinkers' ideas.

This book brings together international academics from a range of Social Science and Humanities disciplines to reflect on how Deleuze's philosophy is opening up and shaping methodologies and practices of empirical research.

At its birth, a new scientific discipline is baptized with the names of the two parent disciplines, Science X and Science Y. Subsequently, usage tends to shorten this compound name by giving preference to one or the other of the constituting terms so that the new term is less disconcerting and novel. Take biophysics, for example. Is it more closely related to physics than to biology, or the other way round? Today this question seems naive but it did not appear (...) so a scarce thirty years ago, that is, at the beginning of the creative activity of the most, eminent scientists in the field of biophysics: it was then the subject of intense discussion. (shrink)