Browsing All Posts filed under »Psychology«

On The Moral Psychology of Social Media

September 25, 2017 by

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When one researches within the domain of moral psychology their aim is mostly to investigate human functioning within a specific or general moral context. These investigations may impact wider debates being had in the domain of ethical theory. In this short post I’d like to think out loud a bit about the moral psychology of […]

Cognitive Dissonance and Philosophy

April 5, 2017 by

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I want to first give credit to the authors of “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)” – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. Their talk of cognitive dissonance and the metaphor of the ‘pyramid of choice’ has inspired my comments below. Although the ideas in this book have obvious ramifications for psychology, psychotherapy, political science, […]

Neuroethics Symposium On Focquaert & Schermer’s, “Moral Enhancement: Do Means Matter Morally?”

August 28, 2015 by

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There is a great symposium taking place over at the Brains Blog on Focquaert & Shermer’s paper in Neuroethics titled “Moral Enhancement: Do MeansMatter Morally” (See here). Disclaimer: I am one of the commentators on the piece. My commentary can be found here. The symposium is a bit different than most in that there is a […]

Mental Illness and Moral Responsibility

January 25, 2015 by

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My 6th post is up over at flickers. I have copied and pasted it below for those not interested in clicking again. Mental illness affects how we perceive the actions of others and with good reason. Consider two scenarios. In scenario 1 a person crashes into you because they had a non-epileptic seizure while driving. […]

Psychopaths and Moral Responsibility: The State of the Debate

January 20, 2015 by

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My 5th post over at Flickers is up, check it out here. I’ve copied and pasted it below for those not interested in clicking (and following comments). Cheers! In the last post I suggested that moral responsibility may not come in degrees and based on the discussion that ensued it seems that we are pretty […]

Bleg: Philosophy survey for mathematicians (From Logblog)

July 23, 2014 by

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There’s a new survey about the intuitions of mathematicians which will be very helpful for philosophers of mathematics (like me). Here is Richard Zach’s original post: A group of researchers in philosophy, psychology and mathematics are requesting the assistance of the mathematical community by participating in a survey about mathematicians’ philosophical intuitions. The survey is […]

Martha Nussbaum, “What is Anger, and Why Should We Care?”

January 16, 2014 by

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Martha Nussbaum has given a very nice talk on why anger is “of dubious value in both life and the law“, the talk can be found here. Although it seems obvious that anger can be bad for our well-being and is often associated with acts of malice and bad intent (and rightfully so), I do […]

Free Will and Love

October 4, 2013 by

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I have argued in the past that Sam Harris needs to read more philosophy. I have said this because Harris, in his book “Free Will“, failed to respond to compatibilist criticisms to the view he was arguing for, criticisms that have been around for quite some time. Harris’ arguments  attempt to prove the thesis that […]

What Can Philosophers Of Mind Learn From Being in Love?

June 23, 2013 by

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An underlying project for many philosophers of mind is to form general theories about the nature of consciousness and mental states. One general theory of consciousness identifies mental states with physical states. In the philosophy of mind game, we call these “physicalist identity theories”. These theories basically assert that every type of mental state is […]

Can Babies Unlock the Origins of Morality? Not So Fast.

November 19, 2012 by

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Recent Psychological studies suggest that babies have an innate moral sense.  On October 18th, CBS aired “The Baby Lab” ( it’s worth the 13 minutes for anyone interested in the Origins of Morality)where they interviewed Psychologists Paul Bloom and Karen Wynn. Both claim that their studies are telling of the “the origins of morality“. This suggests […]

The Nature of Blame

September 26, 2012 by

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What is the nature of blame? Recently, I took my prelim exam in the Philosophy of Mind and one of the questions I answered was on the reactive attitudes and their effect on how we perceive what the nature of blame is. I found the question quite intriguing, and, the purpose of this post will be […]

James Holmes: How his case can shed light on discussions of Moral Responsibility.

July 24, 2012 by

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In a recent blog post in Scientific American the author, Larry Geenemeier, suggests that the accused Colorado Shooter was lacking cognitive control and points specifically to one’s cognitive ability in order to try to make sense of the actions in Aurora, Colorado and other recent events by similarly profiled assailants. Though I agree that we […]

Forgiveness: How does it work?

June 12, 2012 by

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My current philosophical interests are centered around the metaphysics of moral responsibility. This forces me to deal with the assumed underlying epistemic and control conditions. It also forces me to consider blame; when one is worthy of it (blameworthiness), how we normally ascribe it (active blame), and how we move from blame and holding one […]

Psychopaths: Morally Responsible?

May 24, 2012 by

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In April I gave a talk at a Free Will/ Moral Responsibility conference  near my hometown in Massachusetts on the culpability of psychopaths. There, I argued that psychopaths are morally responsible for their actions because they have the necessary cognitive mechanisms one needs to properly judge an action as morally right or morally wrong. Now […]