Imperfect Cognitions

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...

In this post, I discuss the relationship among confabulation, choice blindness, and self knowledge. That is the theme in a new open access paper by Ema Sullivan-Bissett and myself, published in Synthese, as part of a special issue entitled: " Knowing the Unknown: Philosophical Perspectives on Ignorance ". Ema and Lisa When subject to the choice-blindness effect, an agent gives reasons for making choice B, moments after making the alternative choice A. Choice blindness has been studied by the Choice Blindness Lab in Lund in a variety of contexts, from consumer choice and aesthetic judgement to moral and political attitudes. Below you see an image of the set up of one of the studies where people were shown photos of strangers and asked to choose the most attractive face. Which face is most attractive? Choice blindness is often described as a form of confabulation. When people confabulate they tell a story that they believe to be correct, but the story is n...