Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Kiichi Inarimori (Hokkaido University) on his recent paper " Folk Intuitions About Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Evaluating the Combined Effects of Misunderstandings About Determinism and Motivated Cognition " ( Cognitive Science 2024), co-authored with Yusuke Haruki (The University of Tokyo) and Kengo Miyazono (Hokkaido University). Kiichi Inarimori Philosophers have long debated whether free will—a prerequisite for moral responsibility—is compatible with determinism. Central to these discussions are the intuitions people form when considering moral responsibility in hypothetical scenarios. Yusuke Haruki With the rise of experimental philosophy, numerous studies have explored folk intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. Some experiments suggest that people tend toward “compatibilism,” the view that free will and determinism can coexist, especially in concrete cases of wrongdoing. Others suggest a lean toward “incompatibilism,” th...

Today's post is by Lieke Asma at Munich School of Philosophy, on her recent paper “ The relationship between free will and consciousness ” ( Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,  2022).  Lieke Asma Even though Benjamin Libet’s experiments on voluntary action have been criticized extensively by both neuroscientists and philosophers, his ground-breaking research did put one topic firmly on the agenda: what exactly is the relationship between free will and consciousness? Most philosophers agree that if all our conscious intentions would be epiphenomena, we would not decide for ourselves what to do. Self-determination, a crucial condition for free will, would be an illusion. Relatedly, many scholars have argued that Libet did not study those intentions relevant for free will proper .  Real choice is not about moving your wrist at a certain moment, but making plans for the future, for example to buy a house or to plan a trip. These intentions typically are the result of ...

Today's post is by Paul Rehren  at Utrecht University on his recent paper (co-authored with  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong  at Duke University) " How Stable are Moral Judgments ?" ( Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2022). Paul Rehren Psychologists and philosophers often work hand in hand to investigate many aspects of moral cognition. One issue has, however, been relatively neglected: the stability of moral judgments over time [but see, Helzer et al. 2017 ]. In our paper, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and I argue that there are four main reasons for philosophers and psychologists to consider the stability of moral judgments. First, the stability of moral judgments can shed light on the role of moral values in moral judgments. Second, lay people seem to expect moral judgments to be stable in a way that contrasts with tastes. Third, philosophers also assume that  their  moral judgments do and sh...

Today's post is by Kiichi Inarimori, who is a PhD student at Hokkaido University, a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) research fellow, and a new editor of this blog, Imperfect Cognitions. His main research area is the free will debate and experimental philosophy of free will. He is now working on a project which is related to folk intuition about free will. The aim of this project is to identify what intuition people actually have and why they express such intuition, in order to obtain clues for resolving the conflict between compatibilism and incompatibilism. Kiichi Inarimori In the free will debate, some argue that the free will necessary for moral responsibility is compatible with determinism, while others argue that it is incompatible. Theorists on both sides have often claimed that their position is intuitive. Meanwhile, since 2000’s, folk intuitions have been the subject of empirical inquiry. So far, some research supports the view that most people have compat...

Edouard Machery is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh , the Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh , and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (University of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon University).  His research focuses on the philosophical issues raised by psychology and cognitive neuroscience with a special interest in concepts, moral psychology, the relevance of evolutionary biology for understanding cognition, modularity, the nature, origins, and ethical significance of prejudiced cognition, the foundation of statistics, and the methods of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He also works in metaphilosophy, and he has been involved in the development of experimental philosophy. Here, he introduces his new book on philosophical methodology. Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds has four main goals. The first three are negative: ...

In this post, Andrea Polonioli  (pictured below), MBA candidate at Strathclyde Business School, summarises his paper titled “ A Plea for Minimally Biased Naturalistic Philosophy ”,  forthcoming in Synthese. My paper argues that there would be benefits for naturalistic philosophers if they expanded their methodological toolkit. The tools discussed here are the systematic methodologies for literature search and review that are widely employed in the natural, life and health sciences.  More in detail, the paper presents and defends the following claims. First, naturalistic philosophers do not philosophise in a vacuum and, in fact, rely on literature search and review in a number of ways and for several purposes. A hot topic in metaphilosophy concerns how best to describe the methods used by philosophers and their practices. Many of the recent discussions on this topic have focused on whether, to what extent, and how analytic philosophy rests on the use of intuition...