Post-Doc, University Center for human values
University of Oregon, Philosophy
Postdoctoral Research Associate
About
My research is in the area of moral psychology broadly conceived. I am currently working on several related projects.
ETHICS. The primary focus of my research has been a critical evaluation of the compatibility of various ethical views with the insights of psychology and behavioral economics. My dissertation advanced the debate over the existence and robustness of character and virtues begun by John Doris and Gilbert Harman, and I recently submitted a revised and expanded version of this project as a monograph to Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Situationist philosophers question the consistency and explanatory power of the virtues and vices. Though it is commonly assumed that many people have such traits as courage, honesty, and temperance, empirical research suggests otherwise. This poses a threat to virtue ethics, which aspires to be both normatively and psychologically realistic. I argue that this challenge should be co-opted rather than resisted. Situations are powerful but portable (one can select one’s situation) and mutable (one can be an active producer rather than a passive consumer of situations). From this co-opting point of view, one of the key situational influences is the attribution of character traits: when a virtue is attributed to someone, she starts to identify with the trait and to believe that others expect her to act in virtue-consonant ways. Hence, strategically deployed virtue attributions can be seen as self-fulfilling prophecies. Though people may not in fact be virtuous, the tactical use of fictions leads to factitious virtue.
More generally, I am developing a research program designed to refute what I call the containment thesis, the idea that situationism is a problem only for virtue ethics. For example, consequentialists typically analyze the value of states of affairs in terms of the satisfaction of hedonic dispositions or preferences. One possibility is better than another if it involves more pleasure or more satisfied preferences. Research in behavioral economics suggests, however, that our hedonic dispositions and preferences are troublingly indeterminate and unstable. Seemingly trivial and normatively irrelevant situational factors influence what we would find pleasurable and would prefer – even given full information. This suggests that whether one state of affairs is better than another is a question with no answer, or an answer that constantly changes.
I have also worked on meta-ethics, with an eye to problems generated by ambivalence. In a recent article for the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, I discuss the compatibility of ambivalence with fitting-attitude and response-dependence semantics for moral terms. For these theories, the goodness or badness of an object is determined by the sentiment one should or would have towards it on careful reflection. On the fitting-attitude view, something is good (bad) if it would be appropriate to take a pro-attitude (con-attitude) towards it; on the response-dependence view, something is good (bad) if one would be inclined to take a pro-attitude (con-attitude) towards it. These views are exploded by normative and descriptive ambivalence, respectively. If it would be appropriate to feel ambivalence towards something, then according to the fitting-attitude view, that thing is both good and bad. If one would be inclined to feel ambivalence towards something, then according to the fitting-attitudes view, that thing is both good and bad. But presumably ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are contraries. They cannot simultaneously be true of the same object.
In future work, I aim to develop an account of the place of placebo in medical ethics. My work on factitious virtue attributions has led me to think about the mechanisms underlying self-fulfilling prophecies and placebos. It would seem that this research could be carried over into a theory of the appropriate place for placebo in medicine. Currently, using placebo as a treatment (not just for research) is frowned upon, but the dirty secret is that many doctors do exactly that. This is troubling, as it means that doctors not only engage in ethically dubious behavior but endorse norms that proscribe that behavior. Interestingly, some recent studies have found that placebos do not lose all their power even when patients know they’re just “sugar pills.” Perhaps it’s possible to justify the use of placebo as treatment in some cases.
EPISTEMOLOGY. In addition to my work on ethics, I have a strong interest in epistemology. In 2009, I published an article in Erkenntnis on the individuation of belief-formation methods in Nozick’s sensitivity analysis of knowledge. This work is directly tied to the so-called generality problem. According to sensitivity theory and reliabilism, someone knows that p only if her belief that p was formed by a reliable process. However, any event of acquiring a belief could be classed under an indefinite number of headings, some of which are highly reliable, others of which are less so, and still others of which are outright unreliable. Suppose that Susie comes to believe that the cat is on the mat, and that the cat really is on the mat. If we describe her belief-formation process as seeing the cat on the mat, then of course it is reliable. If, however, we describe it as seeming to see the cat on the mat, then it’s not so obvious. Not all seemings as of cats are veridical. The problem is how to pick out the right principle of individuation for belief-formation processes. I argue that sensitivity theory in particular suffers from the problem of process individuation because, unlike classic reliabilism, it defines knowledge using two counterfactuals. On this theory, S knows that p just in case: (1) p, (2) S believes that p via method M, (3) if p were false, S wouldn’t believe p via M, and (4) if p were true, S would believe p via M. I argue that conditions 3 and 4 of this definition require the method to be individuated in different ways; 3 needs fine-grained individuation while 4 needs coarse-grained individuation. Since you can’t have it both ways, the sensitivity analysis of knowledge fails.
Another foray in my campaign against the containment thesis is the articulation of the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. Virtue epistemology cleaves into two camps: reliabilists such as Sosa and Greco, who analyze justification and knowledge in terms of cognitive intellectual virtues (deduction, induction, eyesight, memory), and responsibilists such as Montmarquet and Zagzebski, who analyze justification and knowledge in terms of conative intellectual virtues (conscientiousness, curiosity, honesty, open-mindedness). For both versions of virtue epistemology, the generality problem is crucial. Should cognitive virtues be coarsely individuated, so that inference makes the cut, or should they be finely individuated, so that modus tollendo ponens makes the cut? Should conative virtues be coarsely individuated, so that open-mindedness makes the cut, or should they be finely individuated, so that open-mindedness towards friends while in a good mood makes the cut?
These questions receive new impetus from research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and educational psychology, which suggests that both ordinary people and experts utilize a motley of fine-grained heuristics to arrive at their beliefs. These heuristics are surprisingly accurate in many circumstances, but they can easily lead to gross error. For instance, the availability heuristic treats ease of recall as an index of probability or frequency. The easier it is to conjure up an example of an F, the more common Fs are. While this heuristic allows Americans to guess with astonishing accuracy which of two German cities is larger (the one they’ve heard of), it also leads to patent falsehoods. Most people will say that a sample of prose is likely to contain more words ending in ‘ing’ than words ending in ‘-n-’, even though any word ending in ‘ing’ necessarily ends in ‘-n-’. Virtue epistemologists are therefore faced with a dilemma. If they say that such heuristics are not intellectual virtues, skepticism looms: if most people use non-virtuous heuristics, then most people have unjustified beliefs, which do not count as knowledge. If, however, they say that heuristics are intellectual virtues, then they need to explain how these dispositions are to be construed as reliable. Along the same lines, I argue in a paper forthcoming at Philosophical Quarterly that research by Alice Isen and her colleagues suggests that most people are not curious as such, but curious while in a good mood. And the results of the Asch paradigm indicate that many people are not intellectually courageous as such, but intellectually courageous in the face of non-unanimous dissent. If such narrow traits are not virtues, then even true beliefs acquired through them do not count as knowledge. If they are virtues, then responsibilists owe an explanation of how they are to be construed as admirable.
NIETZSCHE. I have an abiding interest in Nietzsche’s ethical and psychological views. Though I think the recent cottage industry that has sprung up around the topic of Nietzsche's naturalistic metaphysics misplaces its focus (he was an ethicist first and a metaphysician third or fourth), contemporary Nietzsche scholarship is making great strides. My own views on Nietzsche cluster around his moral psychology. I have argued in a couple of articles that he holds a view I dubbed the tenacity of the intentional: when an intentional state with a sub-propositional object loses its object, the affective component of the state persists without a corresponding object, and that affect will generally be redeployed in a state with a distinct object. For instance, an oppressed person who cannot express his resentment will turn that animosity toward a new object rather than giving it up.
In addition, I have argued in another article that Nietzsche’s hierarchical model of the self differs from traditional views so significantly that he can consistently affirm the self as he conceives it while denying the self as traditionally conceived. The Nietzschean self is characterized not by unity, consciousness, knowledge, and rationality, but by plurality, diversity, non-consciousness, and desire. On his view, a state belongs to one’s self in a minimal way if it inheres in one’s body, but to truly possess a state one must endorse it with a higher-order desire. If one is ambivalent in virtue of bodily possessing a state while desiring to be rid of it, one in a way both possesses and does not posses that state. Furthermore, being a self at all on Nietzsche’s view is not an all-or-nothing matter; it admits of degrees. Selves are individuated by their bodies, but one is more a self in direct proportion to one’s wholeheartedness and lack of ambivalence.
My future work on Nietzsche will branch out from these themes to Nietzsche’s virtue theory. Though he liked to describe himself as an anti-moralist, Nietzsche often uses the language of virtue unironically. In Beyond Good and Evil, for instance, there are chapters titled, “We Scholars,” “Our Virtues,” and “What is Noble?” Following on a conversation with Bernard Reginster, I have come to think that Nietzsche is best characterized as an inquiry responsibilist who valorizes a peculiar constellation of intellectual virtues centered on curiosity and including also honesty towards oneself, intellectual courage to investigate distressing psychological phenomena, empathy, insight, and creativity.
EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. Though I am dubious about much extant experimental philosophy, I do think the field will mature quickly. In a recent critique of data-driven statistical methods, Peter Austin showed that patients’ astrological signs were often correlated with their pathologies. For instance, Gemini are 30% more likely to be alcoholics, and Scorpios have an 80% higher risk of developing leukemia. These are obviously statistical anomalies, not indicators of genuine health risks. In the same way, many correlations found by survey-based experimental philosophy deserve little credence. We need theory-driven experiments, not experiment-driven theories. That said, I do believe there is interesting work going on in experimental philosophy. I myself ran a study in the fall of 2009 that aimed to replicate and extend the work of a number of economists. They had discovered that a subtle privacy cue (the image of a face) influenced people’s willingness to cooperate. My study found that the type of face made a significant difference. People who made economic decisions while “watched” by a trustworthy or dominant face gave more than twice as much to the public good as those in the control group, but those “watched” by an untrustworthy face gave 33% less.
In addition to this experiment, in collaboration with James Beebe and Brian Robinson I have developed a unified theory of the Knobe effect in terms of belief-formation heuristics that will soon be published in The Monist’s special issue on experimental philosophy. This work draws on both game-theoretic considerations about which beliefs are most valuable for a given agent and experimental work on asymmetries of knowledge-attribution, belief-attribution, desire-attribution, and intention-attribution.
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