(2013). Why humans are (sometimes) less rational than other animals: Cognitive complexity and the axioms of rational choice. Thinking & Reasoning: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 1-26. doi: 10.1080/13546783.2012.713178.

The cognitive critique of the goals and desires that are input into the implicit calculations that result in instrumental rationality is one aspect of what has been termed broad rationality (Elster, 1983). This cognitive critique involves, among other things, the search for rational integration (Nozick, 1993)—that is, consistency between first-order and second-order preferences. Forming a second-order preference involves metarepresentational abilities made possible by mental decoupling operations. However, these decoupling abilities are separable from the motive that initiates the cognitive critique itself. (...) I argue that Velleman (1992) has identified that motive (“the desire to act in accordance with reasons”), and that it might be operationalisable as a thinking disposition at a very superordinate cognitive level. This thinking disposition, the Master Rationality Motive, is likely to be of particular importance in explaining individual differences in the tendency to seek rational integration. Preliminary research on related constructs suggests that this construct is measurable. (shrink)

This article critically analyzes Owen Flanagan's physicalism and attempt at deriving ethical normativity from current neuroscience. It is argued that neurophysicalism, despite Flanagan's harsh critique of “the new mysterians,” entails a form of mysterianism and that it fails to appropriately ground human mentality within physicalism. Flanagan seeks to bring spirituality and a physicalist ontology together by showing how it is possible to derive an account of the good life from science. This attempt is critiqued and it is shown that Flanagan (...) fails to establish the consistency between ethical normativity and physicalism. Hence, another form of mysterianism seems to emerge within this normative mind science. (shrink)

The human world is replete with narratives – narratives of our making that are uniquely appreciated by us. Some thinkers have afforded special importance to our capacity to generate such narratives, seeing it as variously enabling us to: exercise our imaginations in unique ways; engender an understanding of actions performed for reasons; and provide a basis for the kind of reflection and evaluation that matters vitally to moral and self development. Perhaps most radically, some hold that narratives are essential for (...) the constitution of human selves. This volume brings together nine original contributions in which the individual authors advance, develop and challenge proposals of these kinds. They critically examine the place and importance of narratives in human lives and consider the underlying capacities that permit us to produce and utilise these special artifacts. All of the papers are written in a non-technical and accessible style. (shrink)

It is within the context of a person’s lifestory, we argue, that the idea of wearing aprosthesis assumes place and meaning. Todevelop this argument, a brightly colored hookprosthesis for children is taken as a startingpoint for reflection. The prosthesis can beseen as fitting this person perfectly, when thebodily difference is understood as positivelyadding to this person’s identity. The choicefor the prosthesis is normative in a moralsense, in that it is grounded in a person’sfundamental convictions with respect to hisbeing and living. (...) This understanding of ‘howto live’ can best be grasped – as is suggested– in contrastive terms of ‘sameness’ and‘otherness’. Striving for conformity andsimilarity would do no justice to theexperiences and ideals of unique persons, andwould come at great cost. Moreover, society isnot benefited by persons who merely conform,who copy and imitate others, but by those whowillfully live up to their own unique standards. (shrink)

Abstract.There is a kinship between Owen Flanagan's The Really Hard Problem and William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience that not only can help us to understand Flanagan's book but also can help scholars, particularly scholars of religion, to be attentive to an important development in the realm of the “spiritual but not religious.” Specifically, Flanagan's book continues a tradition in philosophy, exemplified by James, that addresses questions of religious or spiritual meaning in terms accessible to a broad audience outside (...) the context of organized religions. Both James and Flanagan are concerned to refute the popular perception that the sciences of the mind pose a threat to meaning and particularly to meaningful processes of human growth and transformation. Where James used the subconscious to bridge between science and religion and persuade his readers of the reality of the More, Flanagan uses a scientifically grounded understanding of transcendence to enchant his readers into believing in Less. Although I think that Flanagan's attempt to link the psychological and sociocultural levels of analysis via the concept of transcendence is scientifically premature, his attempt at a naturalistic spirituality raises questions of definition that scholars of religion need to take seriously. (shrink)

The limitations of rational models of ethical decision making and the importance of nurses’ human involvement as moral agents is increasingly being emphasized in the nursing literature. However, little is known about how nurses involve themselves in ethical decision making and action or about educational processes that support such practice. A recent study that examined the meaning and enactment of ethical nursing practice for three groups of nurses (nurses in direct care positions, student nurses, and nurses in advanced practice positions) (...) highlighted that humanly involved ethical nursing practice is also simultaneously a personal process and a socially mediated one. Of particular significance was the way in which differing role expectations and contexts shaped the nurses’ ethical practice. The study findings pointed to types of educative experiences that may help nurses to develop the knowledge and ability to live in and navigate their way through the complex, ambiguous and shifting terrain of ethical nursing practice. (shrink)

In a recent, currently unpublished, research project that sought to examine the meaning and enactment of ethical nursing practice across a variety of clinical settings, the significance of moral identity was highlighted. This article describes the findings and illuminates how the moral identities of the nurse participants arose and evolved as they navigated their way through the contextual and systemic forces that shaped the moral situations of their practice. The study revealed the socially-mediated process of identity development and the narrative, (...) dialogical, relational and contextual nature of nurses’ moral identities. (shrink)

Samuel Scheffler defends “The Afterlife Conjecture”: the view that the continued existence of humanity after our deaths—“the afterlife”—lies in the background of our valuing; were we to lose confidence in it, many of the projects we engage in would lose their meaning. The Afterlife Conjecture, in his view, also brings out the limits of our egoism, showing that we care more about yet unborn strangers than about personal survival. But why does the afterlife itself matter to us? Examination of Scheffler’s (...) second argument helps answer this question, thereby undermining his argument. Our concern for the afterlife involves bootstrapping: we care more about the afterlife than about personal survival precisely because the latter has such salient limits that our lives are structured by adaptation to mortality, and it is only because the afterlife does provide a measure of personal survival that it can give meaning to our projects. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the topics of ethics, religion, and their relationship in the work of Charles Taylor. I take Taylor's attempt to confront modern disenchantment by seeking a kind of re-enchantment as my guiding thread. Seeking re-enchantment means, first of all, defending an `engaged realist' account of strong evaluation, i.e., qualitative distinctions of value that are seen as normative for our desires. Secondly, it means overcoming self-enclosure and achieving self-transcendence, which I argue should be understood in terms of (...) transcending a `lower' mode of selfhood for a `higher' one in concern for `strong goods'. One of the main issues that Taylor raises is whether re-enchantment requires theism for its full adequacy. He advances - often as `hunches' - controversial claims regarding the significance of theism (1) for defending strong evaluative realism and (2) for motivating an ethic of universal human concern. I seek to fill out his hunches in terms of a theistic teleological perspective that is centered on the `telos of communion'. I argue that such a view is important for overcoming the problem of what Bernard Williams calls the `radical contingency' of ethical beliefs, which seems to undermine their normative authority. However, I argue that if a non-theistic view of cosmic purpose (e.g., Thomas Nagel's view) can be regarded as a viable option, then it could also help to address this problem and support a kind of re-enchantment. Taylor also advances the controversial view that (3) there is an ineradicable draw to `transcendence' in human life in connection to the quest for the meaning of life. Here he opposes certain mainstream theories of secularization that see it as a process involving the ineluctable fading away of the relevance of religion. I seek to fill out and defend Taylor's view in this matter. Besides providing a reading of Taylor's work as a whole and advancing further some of the issues he raises, I also examine his general evaluative framework based on his account of strong evaluation. In doing so I show how he provides a distinct and important perspective among contemporary moral philosophers. (shrink)

Theories of cognition and theories of social practices and institutions have often each separately acknowledged the relevance of the other; but seldom have there been consistent and sustained attempts to synthesize these two areas within one explanatory framework. This is precisely what my dissertation aims to remedy. I propose that certain recent developments and themes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, when understood in the right way, can explain the emergence and dynamics of social practices and institutions. Likewise, the (...) view I construct explains how social practices and institutions shape the character of cognition of their constituent agents. Moreover, I explain both cognitive and social agency under the single explanatory framework provided by Dynamic Systems Theory. Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition, "embodied, "extended", "embedded", "enactive", and "ecological" approaches to cognition, as well as the conceptual resources of Dynamic Systems Theory, I construct a theory of agency that sees cognitive and social agents as far-from-equilibrium, open, recursively self-maintenant dynamic systems. Depending on the specifics of concrete circumstances, such systems, which I call "Dynamic Embodied Agents", may develop and possess emergent capacities for error-detection, flexible learning, normative behavior, representation, self-reflection, various modes of pattern-recognition, a temporal sense of self, and even moral responsibility. Some such systems are also sensitive to perceived social influences ; while reciprocally constituting and causally affecting them. (shrink)