The rise of cognitive science in the 1960s was widely heralded as a scientific revolution -- an interpretation that implied the decline and eventual death of behavioral psychology. Although many forms of behavioral psychology did indeed disappear, there was a striking exception: the program of operant psychology founded by B.F. Skinner. This program actually grew at a rapid pace during the `cognitive revolution' and shows no signs of fading away. What, then, is its place within psychology, and in particular, what (...) is its relationship with cognitive psychology? This book attempts to answer that question. Distinguishing between operant psychology and the philosophy of radical behaviorism, it concludes that even though radical behaviorism may have been a failure, the operant program of research has been a success. Furthermore, operant psychology and cognitive psychology complement one another, each having its own domain within which it contributes something valuable to, but beyond the reach of, the other. (shrink)

This paper examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demon- strate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this, and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states amongst agents of the same type. This is quite di erent from Schelling-like behavior, and sug- (...) gests (in his terms) that segregation is an instance of macro behavior which can arise from a wide variety of micro motives. (shrink)

Viable Values examines the most basic foundations of value and morality, demonstrating the shortcomings of major traditional views and proposing that morality is grounded in the objective requirements of human life. Smith argues that morality depends on a proper understanding of the concept of values, and that values depend on the alternative of life or death. She proposes that human beings need to be moral in order to live, explaining how life is the standard of morality, how flourishing is the (...) proper end and reward of living morally, and how an intelligent egoism is the path to flourishing. (shrink)

Interpretation of seismic reflection data routinely involves powerful multiple-central-processing-unit computers, advanced visualization techniques, and generation of numerous seismic data types and attributes. Even with these technologies at the disposal of interpreters, there are additional techniques to derive even more useful information from our data. Over the last few years, there have been efforts to distill numerous seismic attributes into volumes that are easily evaluated for their geologic significance and improved seismic interpretation. Seismic attributes are any measurable property of seismic data. (...) Commonly used categories of seismic attributes include instantaneous, geometric, amplitude accentuating, amplitude-variation with offset, spectral decomposition, and inversion. Principal component analysis, a linear quantitative technique, has proven to be an excellent approach for use in understanding which seismic attributes or combination of seismic attributes has interpretive significance. The PCA reduces a large set of seismic attributes to indicate variations in the data, which often relate to geologic features of interest. PCA, as a tool used in an interpretation workflow, can help to determine meaningful seismic attributes. In turn, these attributes are input to self-organizing-map training. The SOM, a form of unsupervised neural networks, has proven to take many of these seismic attributes and produce meaningful and easily interpretable results. SOM analysis reveals the natural clustering and patterns in data and has been beneficial in defining stratigraphy, seismic facies, direct hydrocarbon indicator features, and aspects of shale plays, such as fault/fracture trends and sweet spots. With modern visualization capabilities and the application of 2D color maps, SOM routinely identifies meaningful geologic patterns. Recent work using SOM and PCA has revealed geologic features that were not previously identified or easily interpreted from the seismic data. The ultimate goal in this multiattribute analysis is to enable the geoscientist to produce a more accurate interpretation and reduce exploration and development risk. (shrink)

Ayn Rand is well known for advocating egoism, but the substance of that instruction is rarely understood. Far from representing the rejection of morality, selfishness, in Rand's view, actually demands the practice of a systematic code of ethics. This book explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve their objective well-being: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Tracing Rand's account of the value and harmony of human beings' rational interests, Smith examines what each (...) of these virtues consists of, why it is a virtue, and what it demands of people in practice. Along the way she addresses the status of several conventional virtues within Rand's theory, considering traits such as kindness, charity, generosity, temperance, courage, forgiveness, and humility. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics thus offers an in-depth exploration of several specific virtues and an illuminating integration of these with the broader theory of egoism. (shrink)

The traditional common consent argument for the existence of God has largely been abandoned—and rightly so. In this paper, I attempt to salvage the strongest version of the argument. Surprisingly,...

In a step-by-step progression through Marx's three volume work, discovers a systematic theory of socio-economic categories ordered according to the dialectical logic derived from Hegel.

Ayn Rand is well known for advocating egoism, but the substance of that instruction is rarely understood. Far from representing the rejection of morality, selfishness, in Rand's view, actually demands the practice of a systematic code of ethics. This book explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve his objective well-being: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Tracing Rand's account of the harmony of human beings' rational interests, Smith examines what each of these (...) virtues consists of, why it is a virtue, and what it demands of a person in practice. Along the way she addresses the status of several conventional virtues within Rand's theory, considering traits such as kindness, charity, generosity, temperance, courage, forgiveness, and humility. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics thus offers an in-depth exploration of several specific virtues and an illuminating integration of these with the broader theory of egoism. (shrink)

The sciences are characterized by what is sometimes called a “methodological naturalism,” which disregards talk of divine agency. In response to those who argue that this reflects a dogmatic materialism, a number of philosophers have offered a pragmatic defense. The naturalism of the sciences, they argue, is provisional and defeasible: it is justified by the fact that unsuccessful theistic explanations have been superseded by successful natural ones. But this defense is inconsistent with the history of the sciences. The sciences have (...) always exhibited what we call a domain naturalism. They have never invoked divine agency, but have always focused on the causal structure of the natural world. It is not the case, therefore, that the sciences once employed theistic explanations and then abandoned them. The naturalism of the sciences is as old as science itself. (shrink)

I adapt an old example of Frank Jackson's, in order to show that it is not only possible that actions with different individual agents are sub-optimal when each is not, but that they are impermissible when each is not, and blameworthy when each is not.

The Methods of Science and Religion is a philosophical analysis of the conflict between science and religion, which challenges the popular, contemporary view that science and religion are complementary worldviews. It exposes their methodological incompatibility and concludes that religious modes of investigation are unreliable.

I compare Bratman’s theory with Gilbert’s. I draw attention to their similarities, query Bratman’s claim that his theory is the more parsimonious, and point to one theoretical advantage of Gilbert’s theory.

This essay contends that the debate between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics is better understood as a dispute among three alternatives: subjectivism, objectivism, and intrinsicism. Ayn Rand has identified intrinsicism – the belief that certain things are good “in, by, and of” themselves – as the doctrine that is actually operative in many defenses of moral objectivity. What intrinsicism fails to appreciate, however, is the significant role of the subject, the person to whom and for whom anything can be valuable. (...) Objective value, in Rand's view, is relational. Its existence depends on contributions of both external reality and human consciousness. Values are not reducible to psychological states, as in subjectivism, but nor are they independent of them, as in intrinsicism. Objectivity in ethics is attained neither through revelation of the intrinsic property of goodness nor through the subject's creation of goodness, but through a rational procedure of evaluation that is governed by the method of objectivity. This essay is in three parts, explaining Rand's view of exactly what intrinsicism is; elaborating on her view of the nature of moral objectivity; and highlighting certain features that make plain the differences between an intrinsicist and an objectivist account of value. (shrink)

Nozick provides us with a compelling characterization of romantic love, but, as I argue, he under-describes the phenomenon, for he fails to distinguish it from attitudes that those who are not romantically involved may bear to each other. Frankfurt also offers a compelling characterization of love, but he is sceptical about its application to the case of romantic love. I argue that each account has the resources with which to complete the other. I consider a preliminary synthesis of the two (...) accounts, which I find wanting. The synthesis I then favour relies upon two thoughts: each romantic partner has loving concern for a plural object viz. the two of them, and romantic partners are, in addition, beloved of a plural subject, viz. the two of them. A corollary is that Frankfurt is wrong to think that, whilst self-love is a pure form of love, romantic love is an impure form of love, for romantic love just is a form of self-love. In an appendix, I defend the coherence of the thought that love can have plural relata. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive and practical guide to the ethical issues raised by different kinds of medical research, and is the first such book to be written with the needs of the researcher in mind. Clearly structured and written in a plain and accessible style, the book covers every significant ethical issue likely to be faced by researchers and research ethics committees. The author outlines and clarifies official guidelines, gives practical advice on how to adhere to these, and suggests procedures (...) in areas where official recommendations are vague or absent. This invaluable handbook will help researchers identify and address the ethical issues at an early stage in the design of their studies, to avoid unnecessary delay and to safeguard the wellbeing of patients and healthy volunteers. It will also be extremely useful to members of research ethics committees. (shrink)

This study examines the self-reported ethics of both current and future advertising practitioners, and compares their responses to four scenarios and 17 statements on advertising ethics. Stepwise discriminant analysis was used to determine the extent to which both groups applied the classical ethical theory of deontology to the scenarios and statements. Results indicate significant differences between both groups. For example, current advertising practitioners are significantly less likely than future practitioners to apply deontology to decision making. The implications of these results (...) are discussed and suggestions for future research are outlined. (shrink)

The understanding of emergent, self-organizing phenomena has been immensely deepened in recent years on the basis of simulation-based theoretical research. We discuss these new ideas, and illustrate them using examples from several fields. Our discussion serves to introduce equivalent self-organized phenomena in social interaction. Interaction systems appear to be structured partly by virtue of such emergents. These appear under specific conditions: When cognitive buffering is inadequate relative to the levels of stress persons are subjected to, anxiety-spreading has the potential of (...) pushing their interaction into nonlinear conditions. Arousal in these conditions produces effects on behavior arising from biological sources-indeed, behavior can come under the control of reflex patterns. When this occurs, psychological activity no longer screens off biological controls over behavior. As the direct effects of biological activity spill into interaction, attachment behavior introduced into an interaction system can produce effects that are transmitted beyond dyads to produce global social patterns. These effects illustrate how strong interactions based in biological activity can produce an architecture for social systems. (shrink)

Fluctuations in endogenous opioid activity in the brain, controlled under ordinary conditions by attachment, are capable of producing patterns of dependence in social behavior resembling those appearing in substance abusers. Withdrawal symptoms arising in relation to these fluctuations, short of producing dependence, ordinarily fuel everyday social interaction, and interaction then serves to modulate opioid activity within a range associated with comfort. Comfort-constraints in this sense operate in all settings of social interaction, part of an innate caregiving mechanism conserved by evolution (...) in human behavior. In this paper we present a formal model of the neurosociological mechanism embodying these comfort constraints. Conceptualized as a hyperstructure, the mechanism grounds thinking about social interaction in recent biological discoveries about the brain, and enables sociologists to study how activity in core brain systems constrains deep patterns in social life, including the human tendencies to altruism and reciprocity. Using computational methods, we undertake simulations to study the mechanism, deriving implications about moral behavior. The theory of the hyperstructure leads to new conclusions about reciprocity and altruism, and bears upon sociological understanding of related subjects such as justice and social comparison. (shrink)

“The contemporary” is a phrase in frequent use in artworld discourse as a placeholder term for broader, world-picturing concepts such as “the contemporary condition” or “contemporaneity”. Brief references to key texts by philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Rancière, and Peter Osborne often tend to suffice as indicating the outer limits of theoretical discussion. In an attempt to add some depth to the discourse, this paper outlines my approach to these questions, then explores in some detail what these three theorists (...) have had to say in recent years about contemporaneity in general and contemporary art in particular, and about the links between both. It also examines key essays by Jean-Luc Nancy, Néstor García Canclini, as well as the artist-theorist Jean-Phillipe Antoine, each of whom have contributed significantly to these debates. The analysis moves from Agamben’s poetic evocation of “contemporariness” as a Nietzschean experience of “untimeliness” in relation to one’s times, through Nancy’s emphasis on art’s constant recursion to its origins, Rancière’s attribution of dissensus to the current regime of art, Osborne’s insistence on contemporary art’s “post-conceptual” character, to Canclini’s preference for a “post-autonomous” art, which captures the world at the point of its coming into being. I conclude by echoing Antoine’s call for artists and others to think historically, to “knit together a specific variety of times”, a task that is especially pressing when presentist immanence strives to encompasses everything. (shrink)

The consensus in the philosophical literature on joint action is that, sometimes at least, when agents intentionally jointly φ, this is explicable by their intending that they φ, for a period of time prior to their φ-ing. If this be granted, it poses a dilemma. For agents who so intend either severally or jointly intend that they φ. The first option is ruled out by two stipulations that we may consistently make: (i) that at least one of the agents non-akratically (...) believes that, all things considered, the agents ought not to φ, and (ii) that an agent is akratic, if she intends a thing that she believes, all things considered, ought not to be done. But the second option seems to entail the existence of a mental state with multiple subjects, which, in turn, seems to commit us to the existence of a group mind modified by that state: an incautious posit to say the least. I resolve the dilemma by noting that ‘They jointly intend’ is indeterminate between ‘They intend, jointly’, which does indeed entail that some mental state is an intention with multiple subjects, and ‘Jointly, they intend’, which entails a weaker claim, viz. that some mental state or states is an intention with multiple subjects. I then sketch an account of how a plurality of mental states, distributed among subjects, might, collectively, do service as their intention that they φ. It makes novel use of notions of participation and of doing a thing jointly with others. A corollary is that either intentions are not attitudes towards propositions, or propositions are individuated more finely than is often assumed. (shrink)

We deny that asymmetrical information is a market failure. In order to make this case, we subject to critical scrutiny the strongest case for this thesis: the view that laws prohibiting insider trading are viable, necessary, or compatible with the rule of law.

Smith begins with a comprehensive analysis of social theory, presents a defense of Jurgen Habermas' main contribution to social ethics and contrasts Habermas' rational foundation for ethics with the decisionism defended by Max Weber, and ...

This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different from Schelling-like behavior and suggests that segregation (...) is an instance of macrobehavior that can arise from a wide variety of micromotives. (shrink)

In recent publications Paolo Virno and Carlo Vercellone have called attention to Marx’s category of the general intellect in theGrundrisse, and to the unprecedented role its diffusion plays in contemporary capitalism. According to Virno, the flourishing of the general intellect, which Marx thought could only take place within communism, characterises post-Fordist capitalism. Vercellone adds that Marx’s account of the real subsumption of living labour under capital is obsolete in contemporary cognitive capitalism. Both authors regard Marx’s value theory as historically obsolete. (...) I argue that these views rest on a confusion of value and wealth, a neglect of Marx’s account of the role of ‘free gifts’ to capital, an underestimation of the role of the general intellect in the period prior to the rise of post-Fordism/cognitive capitalism, and an underestimation of the restrictions on the diffusion of the general intellect in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

Pride has been denounced as one of the seven deadly sins and praised as the crown of the virtues. Perhaps because of the difficulty of navigating between these appraisals, pride has not been paid very much attention by ethicists. Moreover, pride is so familiar as a feeling that the suggestion that it could be a virtue may seem misplaced.

Methodological naturalism has been defended on both intrinsic and pragmatic grounds. Both of these defenses agree that methodological naturalism is a principle of science according to which the scientist ought to eschew talk of causally efficacious disembodied minds. I argue that this is the wrong interpretation of methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism does not constrain the theories that scientists may conjecture, but how those theories may be justified. On this view, methodological naturalism is a principle of science according to which supernatural (...) methods of justification, such as faith, are eschewed. (shrink)

According to Jonathan Berg’s Theory of Direct Belief, a belief about some individual is an unmediated dyadic relation between the believer and that individual. Berg’s thesis incorporates a Millian account of proper names, and invokes conversational implicature to explain well-known anti-substitution intuitions. In this critical note, I present a puzzle for the Theory of Direct Belief involving symmetrical substitution in false identity belief reports.

In his recent work The Myth of Dialectics John Rosenthal presents a forceful polemic against Hegel and Marxists sympathetic to the Hegelian legacy. The methodology Hegel employed, his metaphysical assertions, his rejection of the principles of formal logic, and the political implications of his standpoint, are all fundamentally incompatible with Marx’s perspective, according to Rosenthal. While Rosenthal grants that Marx did make use of Hegelian motifs in his theory of value, even this is not to Hegel’s credit: the very perversity (...) of Hegel’s thought made it useful for the comprehension of the perversity of capital. In this paper I argue that a close and reasonably charitable reading of Hegel’s Logic reveals a quite different picture of his methodology and ontological commitments from that presented by Rosenthal. While there are profound substantive differences between the Hegelian and Marxian 1 perspectives on capitalist society, it is not the case that Hegel’s Logic is homologous with capital. The Logic provides helpful conceptual resources for a critique of capital. In the final section of the paper five areas are briefly sketched in which Hegelian dialectical logic remains of contemporary interest. (shrink)

Free market environmentalists believe that the extension of private property rights and market transactions is sufficient to address environmental difficulties. But there is no invisible hand operating in markets that ensures that environmentally sound practices will be employed just because property rights are in private hands. Also, liability laws and the court systems cannot be relied upon to force polluters to internalize the social costs of pollution. Third, market prices do not provide an objective measure of environmental matters. Finally, there (...) is a right to a livable environment that justifies regulations protecting the public from unreasonable environmental risks. (shrink)

Animism Animism is a religious and ontological perspective common to many indigenous cultures across the globe. According to an oft-quoted definition from the Victorian anthropologist E. B. Tylor, animists believe in the “animation of all nature”, and are characterized as having “a sense of spiritual beings…inhabiting trees and rocks and waterfalls”. More recently, ethnographers and … Continue reading Animism →.

Chris Arthur‟s body of work counts as a very important and original contribution to systematic dialectics, and I have profited immensely from his writings over the years. However we disagree on a number of points. Some have to do with the relatively secondary question of the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx; others involve more substantive matters. In his reply to my review of Joseph McCarney‟s Hegel on History Arthur distinguishes three different versions of the thesis that there is a (...) “homology” between the logic of capital (in a Marxian understanding of it) and Hegel‟s “idea.” I shall comment briefly on each and then conclude with a general remark. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions related to ethics and cheating among a representative sample of primarily female undergraduate students, compared to trends reported in the literature. Focus groups were organized to discuss nine scripted questions. Transcripts and audiotapes were analyzed and four main themes emerged: demographics of those who cheat, students’ perceptions of cheating, the role of technology in cheating, and consequences of cheating, including students’ attitudes and behaviors related to reporting cheating incidents. Bandura’s (...) Social Cognitive Theory served as the theoretical framework to understand students’ varying perceptions of and justification for cheating, as well as the dynamics of honor code violations, via group discussion. Viewpoints on cheating were regularly discussed and contradictory views were identified related to frequency and justification for cheating. Utilizing the constant comparative method, students mentioned time limitations, and pressure from peers, parents, and professors as reasons to cheat. They also discussed pressures to achieve high grades for acceptance into graduate programs. Students were also reluctant to report their classmates for cheating incidents. Repeated and comprehensive education on ethical behavior is warranted. (shrink)