Some recent posts by Dan Kahan on the subject of “cultural cognition” deserve attention: (Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact (e.g., whether global warming is a serious threat; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less) to values that… Continue reading Cultural Cognition is Not a Bias
Tag: Judging with Your Gut
Empathy, Cognition, and In-Group Preferences
The speculative post on empathy generated a great set of comments over on Facebook, but I think the discussion was weighed down by the framing from the original article regarding “Extreme Female Brain.” Those (like Cordelia Fine) who have rejected the account of autism-spectrum disorders as “Extreme Male Brain” have largely done so because of the… Continue reading Empathy, Cognition, and In-Group Preferences
The Fallacy Fallacy [sic] of Mood Affiliation (Workplace Domination Part Two)
In his initial response to the the Crooked Timber bloggers, Cowen also suggests that he doesn’t like the “mood affiliation” of the CT bloggers: I am not comfortable with the mood affiliation of the piece. How about a simple mention of the massive magnitude of employee theft in the United States, perhaps in the context… Continue reading The Fallacy Fallacy [sic] of Mood Affiliation (Workplace Domination Part Two)
Crazyism about Ethics
Crazyism about X is the view that something it would be crazy to believe must be among the core truths about X. It’s probably more common than we’d like to think. Some significant portion of professional philosophers can be manipulated into accepting or refusing the Doctrine of Double Effect on the basis of the order… Continue reading Crazyism about Ethics
Deciding Whether or Not to Tell a Story
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “Truth and Beauty” with the poet Ann Lauterbach. It was basically a class on reading and writing essays, but I took it because I was a philosophy major and I thought it would be about aesthetics, i.e. about whether judgments about beauty can be true… Continue reading Deciding Whether or Not to Tell a Story