Did your candidate or party lose an election? That’s disheartening. It really is. But I hope you’ll eventually be turn your attention to deeper, more pressing problems . For instance, we are not reasoning well, we are doing a bad job of reassuring those who feel neglected, and we are letting our political parties determine what we care about. Continue reading 3 Post-Election Problems (and Solutions?)
Category: Cognitive Science
Addiction Vs. Habit: An Infographic
September was National Recovery Month. And in September, science writer Megan Ray Nichols reached out. Megan made an infographic about the research on and differences between addiction and habit. It’s really interesting and well-designed! Check out the infographic and the sources below. Continue reading Addiction Vs. Habit: An Infographic
Considering Third Party Candidates? A Podcast Discussion
The 2016 US election has many people thinking about third party candidates. Good news: philosophers and others have been sorting out the ethics and rationality of voting for awhile now. I talk about the philosophy of third party voting with Kurt Jaros below:
The Podcast
Continue reading Considering Third Party Candidates? A Podcast Discussion
The Minds Online Conference Is Starting!
From September 5 to September 30, there is an exciting, free, online conference about the philosophy and science of mind: the (second annual) Minds Online conference! Loads of wonderful scholars are sharing and commenting on each other’s research — and you can access and participate in all of it!
Here are a few things to note for those who are new to online conferences.
- Sessions: There are four sessions, each with a different topic and its own keynote.
- Timeline: Each session lasts one week. (So the conference lasts four weeks).
- Participating: You can read papers starting the weekend before their session. And you you can comment on papers on Monday through Friday of their session.
So head on over and enjoy the wonder that is conferencing from the comfort of your home, office, favorite coffee shop, etc.
Here’s the program: http://mindsonline.philosophyofbrains.com/minds-online-2016-program/
Fact-checking is not enough: We need argument-checking
I see more fact-checking on Facebook than I used to. While I’m glad to see fact-checking catching on, fact-checking isn’t enough — or so I’ll argue in this post.
1. Fact-checking: The problem
Let’s say that you and I agree on all the facts. Now let’s say that we start arguing. Will we agree? Will we even argue well? Not necessarily!
After all, we can reason badly even if we agree on the facts. Specifically, we can jump to conclusions that don’t follow from the facts. So fact-checking our argument(s) won’t necessarily fix all the problems with our argument(s).
2. Bad Arguments
Consider some of the claims that people make:
- The new federal healthcare policy caused Continue reading Fact-checking is not enough: We need argument-checking
Voting Third-Party: A Wasted Vote?
Is a third-party vote a wasted vote? People frequently claim — implicitly or explicitly — that it is. I will argue that it isn’t (here and on this podcast). Actually, voting third-party might be a solution to a long-standing problem.
1. The Two Party Problem
To begin, consider the two party system. Ask yourself, “Is this the best system for nominating the greatest quantity of competent and viable candidates?” Obviously not. After all, the two party system gives us only …well, two viable options! Think about it: the only system that can produce fewer viable candidates is a dictatorship. So any other (democratic) election system would be better than a two party system.
Let’s call this unfortunate situation the two party problem.
Obviously, a solution to the two party problem requires Continue reading Voting Third-Party: A Wasted Vote?
Is Philosophical Reflection Ever Inappropriate?
I am sometimes that stereotype of a socially inept philosopher. I fail to realize the difference between hyperbole or sarcasm, on the one hand, and seriousness, on the other hand.1 I say things that are technically correct, but socially incorrect. And I take casual claims way too seriously. In short, I go into philosophical reflection mode when I’m probably not supposed to:
(X and Y are discussing plans for the weekend.)
[X]: I don’t know, man. That sounds like a bad idea.
[Y]: That’s cuz it is a bad idea!
(Laughter)
(Nick overhears this.)
Me: Uhh, I don’t know about that. Sounding like a bad idea doesn’t make it a bad idea. Surely bad sounding ideas can be—
[X]: Chill out, Nick. No one actually thinks that it’s a bad idea just because is sounds like a bad idea. It’s just a thing people say.
Learning From The Socially Inept Philosopher
Two things about my social ineptitude stand out to me:
- My inept responses are often instances of overthinking.
- Overthinking seems to prevent me from realizing something that would have otherwise been obvious.
My overthinking seems to be a form of philosophical reflection. And if that is right, then my ineptitude might demonstrate that philosophical reflection is sometimes inappropriate. In what follows I’ll mention two examples of misunderstanding the use of philosophical reflection. This will lead me to a provisional conclusion: philosophical reflection is ill-suited for certain social situations.
The Philosophers’ Mistake
Philosophers spend their days thinking critically. This often involves suspending judgment(s) until they’ve had a chance to reflect. So when philosophers are faced with a claim — even in casual conversation — it would be understandable for the philosopher’s first response to be some form of philosophical reflection (…at least that’s what I tell myself when I am socially inept).
Philosophical reflection is not always bad, of course. Sometimes it’s crucial! It can help us identify Continue reading Is Philosophical Reflection Ever Inappropriate?
Peer-review: on what basis should we reject papers?
When you peer-review a paper, you can make one of a few basic recommendations to the editor. One option is this: do not publish the paper.
So what criteria should you use to make such a recommendation? In this post, I argue that some criteria are better than others.
1. Is the paper convincing?
A friend of mine mentioned this criterion the other day: “…[philosophy] papers ought to be convincing.” Call this the Convince Me standard or CM.
Maybe you think that CM sounds like a reasonable standard for peer-review. I don’t. Continue reading Peer-review: on what basis should we reject papers?
One Way To Do Philosophy: A Flowchart
I like philosophy. And I like flowcharts. So — obviously — I had to make a philosophy flowchart. It outlines my process as a philosopher.
1. The Process
According to the philosophy flowchart, my philosophical process is pretty straightforward. There are just a few steps.
- Look for a thesis.
- Look for an argument.
- Determine whether you care about the thesis.
- Take a stance.
- Give an argument.
- Evaluate the argument.
- Document and/or repeat.
2. Try Out The Process
Let’s see how the philosophy flowchart would work. Imagine that you’re reading Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” (1974) [PDF]. Here’s how I’d proceed:
Step 1. Look for a thesis.
Singer was pretty kind to his reader. He made the thesis fairly clear. It’s just this:
Thesis: “[most people in affluent countries] ought to give lots of money away, and it is wrong not to do so.”
Step 2. Look for the argument.
Singer has also made it pretty easy to find the argument for his thesis. The premises are as follows:
Premise 1: “Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are very bad.”
Premise 2: “If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else of comparable moral significance, [then] we ought, morally, to do it.”
Premise 3: “([For people in affluent countries] It is within our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else of comparable moral significance — e.g., by giving away lots of money away.)”
Step 3-7: …you get the idea.
Challenge. If you’ve never run read or written anything about Singer’s paper and you’re interested in the thesis, then you might consider the following challenge:
- (re)read the paper
- complete the remaining steps in the flowchart
- share your results in the comments.
References
Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(3), 229–243. [PDF]
Do reflective people agree about ethics?
You might think that most people will share some big-picture beliefs about morality (a la “common morality“). And you might think that this agreement is the result of reflective reasoning about ethics. For example, most people might think about ethics for awhile and accept a consequentialist principle like this: we should try to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Well, it turns out that people don’t agree about such ethical principles — not even people who often reflect on such matters. Before I get to the evidence for that claim, take a look at someone who thought that reflective people do agree about ethics.
1. Will Reflective People To Agree About Ethics?
Here’s Henry Sidgwick:
“The Utilitarian principle […that there is a] connexion between right action and happiness […] has always been to a large extent recognised by all reflective persons.” (The Methods of Ethics, Book I, Chapter 6, Section 3)
Sidgwick is claiming that…
- there is a connection between happiness and right conduct (and)
- all reflective people recognize this connection.
What do you think? Do these claims sound right?
2. The Evidence
Notice that 2 requires evidence. Alas, 2 is not well-supported by evidence: reflective people do not seem to agree that there is an important ethical connection between happiness and right conduct.
Common Morality
Consider that there is widespread disagreement about 1 among philosophers. To quantify this disagreement a bit, let us look at some data. Of about 1000 philosophers surveyed in 2009, 25.9% of leaned toward or accepted deontology, 18.2% leaned toward or accepted virtue ethics, and 23.6% leaned toward or accepted consequentialism (Bourget and Chalmers 2013). Consequentialism is the view most associated with 1 — the idea that there is a connection between happiness and right conduct — and yet fewer than a quarter of philosophers are partial to it. So, contrary to Sidgwick’s claim, the consequentialist’s connection between happiness and right conduct does not seem to be recognized by all reflective people. Indeed, it does even seem to be recognized be even most reflective people.
Reflection
In situations like this, an intuitionist like Sidgwick might want to press on the notion of ’reflective’. After all, the finding (above) is only a problem for Sidgwick if — among other things — philosophers count as ‘reflective.’ If they do, then Sidgwick’s hypothesis is falsified. If they do not, then Sidgwick’s hypothesis might still be intact.
So if you want to defend Sidgwick’s hypothesis 2 from the evidence (above), then you need to argue that philosophers do not count as reflective — and do not thereby pose a counterexample to 2. One cannot, of course, merely stipulate that philosophers do not count as reflective. That would be ad hoc. In order to defend Sidgwick’s 2 from the aforementioned data, you will need to appeal to independent evidence. Fortunately there is independent evidence about the relative reflectiveness of philosophers and non-philosophers.
Alas, the evidence does not support Sidgwick’s hypothesis (2). Rather, the evidence suggests that philosophers are significantly more reflective than non-philosophers. In a sample of 4000 participants, those with training in philosophy performed up to three times better on tests of reflection — e.g., the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick 2005) — than those without such training (Livengood et al 2010). This result has been replicated and expanded. For example, those with (or a candidate for) a PhD in philosophy also performed significantly better than others — F(1, 558) = 15.41, p < 0.001, d = 0.32 (Byrd 2014). And these findings are not new. Over 20 years ago, Deanna Kuhn found that philosophers demonstrated “perfect” and domain-general reasoning competence (Kuhn 1991, 258-262).
So it seems that if any group of people should count as reflective, it is philosophers. And these reflective people do not — contrary to Sidgwick’s hypothesis 2 — unanimously recognize a connection between happiness and rightness.
3. So what now?
The idea that people share a “common morality” via “reflective equilibrium” might fly in the face of evidence. It certainly does for Sidgwick. After all, it seems like reflective people (e.g., philosophers) simply don’t agree about the alleged connection between happiness and right conduct. And if you try to respond to this evidence by denying that philosophers are reflective, then you run into another problem: that claim also flies in the face of evidence. So those objections won’t work.
A better strategy might be to reject my claims about the association between Sidgwick’s claims and consequentialism. That is, you might say that non-consequentialist approaches to ethics acknowledge the connection between happiness and right conduct just as much as consequentialist approaches — sort of like Andy Hallman does in the comments. If that claim is right, then Sidgwick might have been on to something. I leave it to you to decide if that kind of objection is promising.
Featured image: “Extermination of Evil Sendan Kendatsuba” via Wikipedia Commons (in the public domain).
