August 27, 2010

CFP: Morality and the Cognitive Sciences
By S. Matthew Liao

7th International Symposium of Cognition, Logic and Communication
6-8 May 2011, Riga, Latvia

INVITED ORGANIZERS: Michael Bishop (Florida State University), Stephen Stich (Rutgers University)

INVITED SPEAKERS include:
Michael Bishop (Florida State University)
Luc Faucher (Université du Québec a Montréal)
Joshua Knobe (Yale University)
Edouard Machery (University of Pittsburgh)
Dominic Murphy (University of Sydney)
Shaun Nichols (University of Arizona)
Jesse Prinz (City University of New York)
Adina Roskies (Dartmouth College)
Don Ross (University of Cape Town)
Stephen Stich (Rutgers University)
Valerie Tiberius (University of Minnesota)

Read the full post here

Posted on August 27, 2010 at 4:44 am in Conference Announcement, Experimental Ethics, Experimental Philosophy, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

June 7, 2010

Experiment Month
By S. Matthew Liao

The Experiment Month initiative is a program designed to help philosophers conduct experimental studies. If you are interested in running a study, you can send your study proposal to the Experiment Month staff. Then, if your proposal is selected for inclusion, they will conduct the study online, send you the results and help out with any statistical analysis you may need. All proposals are due Sept. 1.

For further information, see the Experiment Month website: http://www.yale.edu/cogsci/XM/

Posted on June 7, 2010 at 4:14 am in Experimental Philosophy, General Announcement, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

April 25, 2010

The Truth in Cultural Relativism
By Antti Kauppinen

Do moral judgments form a psychological natural kind? Lately, Stephen Stich and his colleagues have been arguing on the basis of empirical evidence that the features psychologists have identified as key to moral judgment do not, as a matter of fact, cluster together in a lawlike fashion. In particular, they argue that harm attributions do not always evoke the signature moral response pattern of authority-independence and generality, and conclude that since the purported nomological cluster breaks down, moral judgments do not form a natural kind. Their argument, of course, leaves open the possibility that there is some other cluster to be found. I am not a big believer in nomological clusters, but I will propose an alternative content feature that does seem to pair with the signature moral pattern in a lawlike fashion. Namely, it seems that whenever people take a piece of behaviour to express, in context, any of a set of attitudes that ranges from disrespect to debasement, the signature moral pattern is evoked. (As usual, I’ll just focus on wrongness judgments.) In short, people are intuitive deontologists, and for all that Stich says, there may be a psychological natural kind of moral judgment. My alternative model involves commitment to a commonsense cultural relativism, but one of an entirely innocuous kind that poses no threat to moral objectivism. To distinguish it from standard or deference relativism, I’ll call it significance relativism.

Read the full post here

Posted on April 25, 2010 at 8:12 pm in Antti Kauppinen's Posts, Experimental Ethics, Experimental Philosophy, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Normative Ethics | 3 Comments

April 17, 2010

Workshop on Experimental Philosophy and Metaethics
By S. Matthew Liao

Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 10am to 5pm
Location: NYU Silver Center, Room 207
Hosted by the Metro Experimental Research Group (MERG)

(All details available at: http://www.yale.edu/cogsci/metaxphi.htm)

A series of recent experimental studies have examined people’s intuitions about metaethical issues. Participants in this workshop will discuss the implications of these studies both for questions about people’s ordinary folk views and for broader philosophical questions about moral realism, moral relativism and expressivism.

Invited Speakers: Stephen Darwall, Geoff Goodwin, Gilbert Harman, Jesse Prinz, Hagop Sarkissian and David Wong

I’ll be presenting with some colleagues and I look forward to seeing you there!

Posted on April 17, 2010 at 7:57 pm in Conference Announcement, Experimental Ethics, Experimental Philosophy, Metaethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

September 19, 2009

Surveying Loose Talk
By Antti Kauppinen

This is the first in a series of posts about recent work in experimental philosophy. I will be examining some persistent general issues with the different experimental approaches by way of looking at particular papers in some detail. I’ll begin with ‘Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience’ by Justin Sytsma and Edouard Machery. The problem that the study highlights is that everyday language is often vague, ambiguous, or just spoken loosely, so that we can’t draw conclusions about people’s concepts just by looking at what they say in response to prompts. We first need to tease out just what people mean, and this can’t be done in a survey that doesn’t allow for a back-and-forth between the researcher and the subject. This would be a problem even if experimentalists solved all the other problems raised by myself and others.

Read the full post here

Posted on September 19, 2009 at 8:59 pm in Antti Kauppinen's Posts, Experimental Philosophy, Philosophical Methods, Philosophy of Mind | 5 Comments

August 27, 2009

The Experimental Philosophy Page
By S. Matthew Liao

Readers might be interested in the Experimental Philosophy Page, which has over 100 papers covering causation, consciousness, folk psychology, intentional action, metaphilosophy and other areas of research, and which looks to be a very helpful resource. All entries have citations and links, and many also have excerpts or abstracts and links to the authors’ academic web page.

The site is set up such that anyone can edit and update the page, e.g., by adding a paper that isn’t yet included. In fact, the site will only continue to be useful if a decent number of people chip in and add to/update it. So if you have done research in this area, do chime in.

Posted on August 27, 2009 at 3:06 pm in Experimental Philosophy, General Announcement, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

January 13, 2009

Experimental Philosophy: NEH Summer Institute
By S. Matthew Liao

Experimental Philosophy is a new movement that uses experiments to address traditional philosophical questions. Although the movement is only a few years old, it has attracted prolific practitioners as well as ardent critics. (For more about Experimental Philosophy, see the recent article in the New York Times or the ongoing discussion at the Experimental Philosophy Blog.)

This summer, the NEH is sponsoring an Institute on Experimental Philosophy. The Institute will bring in over a dozen distinguished guest faculty, who will present their latest research across a wide range of issues and perspectives. The Institute will also provide participants with the opportunity to learn experimental methods that are used in Experimental Philosophy. The Institute will also provide participants with the opportunity to learn experimental methods that are used in Experimental Philosophy.

Read the full post here

Posted on January 13, 2009 at 1:54 pm in Experimental Ethics, Experimental Philosophy, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment