The Monty Hall Problem (MHP), a process of two-stage decision making, was presented in atypical form via a custom software game. Differing from the normal three-box MHP, the game added one additional box on-screen for each game—culminating on game 23 with 25 on-screen boxes to initially choose from. A total of 108 participants played 23 games (trials) in one of four conditions; (1) “Vanish” condition—all non-winning boxes totally removed from the screen; (2) “Empty” condition—all non-winning boxes remain on-screen, but with (...) an “empty” label on them; (3) “Steroids” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, with initially chosen box becoming 25% larger; (4) “Steroids2” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, box not currently chosen becomes 25% larger. Results indicate second-stage on-screen presence of boxes influences switching; with their absence having the opposite effect. Size manipulation appears to elicit demand characteristics resulting in indeterminate influence. (shrink)
The idea that victims of social injustice who commit crimes ought not to be subject to punishment has attracted serious attention in recent legal and political philosophy. R. A. Duff has argued, for example, a states that perpetrates social injustice lacks the standing to punish victims of such injustice who commit crimes. A crucial premiss in his argument concerns the fact that when courts in liberal society mete out legitimate criminal punishments, they are conceived as acting in the name of (...) all citizens—on behalf of the whole political community. Resisting this premiss, Peter Chau has suggested that courts ought to be conceived as acting only in the name of “just citizens”: citizens who cannot be plausibly seen as having contributed to distributive injustice. When conceived in this way, Chau argues, courts can no longer plausibly be regarded as lacking standing to punish. This article uses the debate between Duff and Chau to explain why the question of whether to punish socially deprived offenders can only be answered adequately when connected to broader concerns of democratic theory. Specifically, it argues that Chau’s proposal is not available within the context of the kind of political community upon which (Duff rightly believes) a system of liberal criminal law depends for its justification and maintenance: a community in which citizens see the law as embodying shared norms whose specific demands they disagree about. State officials are morally permitted to see themselves as acting on behalf of a subset of the citizenry, I argue, only in circumstances of democratic crisis : circumstances in which a moral community can no longer be plausibly said to exist. (shrink)
The proposal that the criminal justice system should focus on rehabilitation – rather than retribution, deterrence, or expressive denunciation – is among the least popular ideas in legal philosophy. Foremost among rehabilitation’s alleged weaknesses is that it views criminals as blameless patients to be treated, rather than culpable moral agents to be held accountable. This article offers a new interpretation of the rehabilitative approach that is immune to this objection and that furnishes the moral foundation that this approach has lacked. (...) The view rests on the principle that moral agents owe it to one another to maintain the dependability of their moral capacities. Agents who culpably commit criminal wrongs, however, betray an unacceptable degree of moral unreliability. Punishment, on this theory, consists in the enforcement of the duties that offenders have to reduce their own likelihood of recidivism. (shrink)
Should governments pay ransoms to terrorist organisations that unjustly kidnap their citizens? The United Kingdom and the United States refuse to negotiate with terrorist groups that kidnap and threaten to kill their people. In contrast, continental European countries, such as France and Germany, have regularly paid ransoms to rescue hostages. Who is right? This debate has raged in the public domain in recent years, but no sustained attempt has been made to subject the matter to philosophical scrutiny. This article explores (...) this issue, focusing on the case of ransom payments to terrorist organisations. It contends that the state's duty to protect its citizens from murder grounds a defeasible obligation to pay ransoms. It considers the objection that a policy of paying ransoms endangers citizens abroad by increasing the likelihood of future kidnappings, and it explains why this objection is not sufficiently weighty. It then identifies a more powerful objection: namely, that a state's payment of ransoms makes the state complicit in the serious injustices that its ransom payments fund. It concludes that unless states can offset their contributions to such injustices, paying ransoms is wrong. (shrink)
Excerpt: This is a book which seeks to sketch out a coherent philosophy of life. By arguing that "human life is radical reality," Professor Tuttle places the ontological priority of "my life" over and against that of every reality encountered in that life. Yet the life at issue in this book is no solus ipse, and the things or pragmata of this life do not therefore depend on the I for their being. As Ortega y Gasset asserts, I am myself (...) and my circumstances. Neither subject nor substance exists independently of the other. As such, each bears the mark of this bi-polarity (40, 45). Hence human life, "my life," is not conceived here as a subjective immanence but rather as a carnate life that projects itself, i.e., its possibilities, into the concrete situation of its worldly circumstances. Indeed, the narrative structure of this projection expresses a central categorical feature of human life, its historicity. "Human life becomes here conceived as the historical stream of the inner and outer, the 'I' and its world" (155). Every reality takes its meaning from—in truth, has its status as a transcendent reality from—the manner and the guise in which it appears within the narrative of this self-construction of my life (5, 26, 40, 45, 88, 156, 171). This is a thesis, Tuttle argues, that has its roots in the writings of three figures: Wilhelm Dilthey, to whom the author refers as the "founder of the philosophy of human life," Martin Heidegger, the famous German philosopher whose explication of the structure of Dasein is central to the situated intersubjectivity of "my life" articulated in this book, and José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher whose writings arguably play the most central role in the work (6, 26, 142, 155, 166). -/- Professor Tuttle ought to be commended for the breadth of his undertaking and the economy of his presentation. Given its ambition, this is a short work of no more than 179 pages excluding notes and bibliography. This pithiness and a general lack of technical jargon speak well of the work, especially as it seems likely to find its way into the hands of young scholars interested in existential phenomenology, Lebensphilosophie, and continental philosophy generally. Indeed, within this broad field there are too few efforts like this one which seek to examine the interconnection of these three philosophers. Yet the very attributes that make this book a favorable addition to any collection also contribute to a serious defect in the work. Where its brevity demands precise articulation, the book often falls into repetition. The discussion of the distinction between clock time and lived time, for instance, comes across as especially belabored. Throughout the work, there are passages which appear virtually identical in different sections. And where its accessible presentation offers an easy introduction to some very difficult material, its lack of focus leaves one to wonder about the efficacy of its message. As Professor Tuttle remarks in the last lines of the work, "this essay is at very best only a collection of abstract and skeletal thought forms that have been generated within my life in its relation to its circumstances" (178). -/- Reading the work, then, one wonders if it is best suited for the young scholar, the accomplished academic, or both. A lack of sufficient background footnoting restricts the acceptability of this work as a tool for serious research. For instance, given the aims of the book one would expect that Heidegger's lectures on "Wilhelm Dilthey's Research and the Struggle for a Historical Worldview" would have a prominent role in the essay, yet it is not even cited. The essay thus seems best directed towards more novice scholars. Yet the skeletal feel of the work and the unfocused integration of many of the themes from the different writings of Dilthey, Heidegger, and Ortega y Gasset lead to a confusion about each rather than a clear understanding... (shrink)
