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64The fragmented folk: More evidence of stable individual differences in moral judgments and folk intuitionsIn B. C. Love, K. McRae & V. M. Sloutsky (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society., Cognitive Science Society. pp. 1771--1776. 2008.In a series of five experiments, we demonstrate that moral judgments and folk intuitions are often predictably fragmented. Drawing on the domains of ethics and action theory, we illustrate ways in which judgment tends to be associated with stable individual differences such as personality traits and reflective cognitive styles. We argue that these individual differences pose several unique challenges as well as provide opportunities for further theoretical development in the emerging field of ex…Read more
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64Predicting Philosophical DisagreementPhilosophy Compass 8 (10): 978-989. 2013.We review evidence showing that disagreement in folk and expert philosophical intuitions can be predicted by global, heritable personality traits. The review focuses on recent studies of intuitions about free will, ethics, and intentional action. These findings are philosophically important because they suggest that while some projects cannot be done, other projects must take individual differences in philosophical character into account. But care needs to be taken when interpreting the implicat…Read more
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64Experimental philosophy of actual and counterfactual free will intuitionsConsciousness and Cognition 36 (C): 113-130. 2015.Five experiments suggested that everyday free will and moral responsibility judgments about some hypothetical thought examples differed from free will and moral responsibility judgments about the actual world. Experiment 1 (N = 106) showed that free will intuitions about the actual world measured by the FAD-Plus poorly predicted free will intuitions about a hypothetical person performing a determined action (r = .13). Experiments 2–5 replicated this result and found the relations between actual …Read more
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55Experimental PhilosophyAnalyze and Kritik 31 (1): 201-219. 2009.Experimental philosophy is a new approach to philosophy that incorporates the experimental methodologies of psychology, behavioral economics, and sociology. Experimental philosophers generally maintain that, in addition to traditional philosophical practices, these ways of gathering evidence can be instrumental in shedding light on philosophically important issues. Rather than relying on their own intuitions about specific cases, experimental philosophers perform systematic experiments to determ…Read more
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46Consumer Accuracy at Identifying Plant-based and Animal-based Milk ItemsFood Ethics 4 (1): 85-112. 2019.Are people are product literate enough to make informed decisions about plant-based and animal-based milk products? In 8 studies, we provide evidence that consumers do not make mistakes indicative of pervasive lack of milk product literacy. People were accurate at identifying plant-based and animal-based milk and cheese products as being plant or animal-based (74% - 84% of the time). In a more difficult task, participants were generally accurate at identifying nutritional differences between pla…Read more
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37Experimental philosophy needs to matter: Reply to Andow and CovaPhilosophical Psychology 29 (4): 567-569. 2016.Nearly a decade of research has provided overwhelming evidence that there is no the folk intuition about many fundamental philosophical questions, just as there is no the gender of human beings or...
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32Extraversion and compatibilist intuitions: a ten-year retrospective and meta-analysesPhilosophical Psychology 32 (3): 388-403. 2019.The past ten years have seen multiple attempts to estimate the relation between the global personality trait extraversion and compatibilist free will judgments. Here, we contribute to that line of research by conducting a meta-analysis of 17 published and eight unpublished studies (N = 2,811) estimating that relation. Overall, the mean effect size was modest but remarkably robust across materials, locations, and labs (z =.19, 95% CI.15-.24, p
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31Knowledge, moral praise, and moral side effectsJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 27 (1): 123-126. 2007.Thomas Nadelhoffer claims that a morally praiseworthy agent cannot knowingly produce a morally positive side effect. I claim that the argument Nadelhoffer uses to establish this claim has two false premises. The two false premises are: If something is a side effect, then it is not desired or intended; and If agent S is morally praiseworthy and knows that her performing p will produce a morally positive q, then q forms part of S's reason for p-ing. I offer a counterexample that shows the falsity …Read more
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28Heuristics and Life-Sustaining TreatmentsJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 9 (4): 443-455. 2012.Surrogates’ decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatments (LSTs) are pervasive. However, the factors influencing surrogates’ decisions to initiate LSTs are relatively unknown. We present evidence from two experiments indicating that some surrogates’ decisions about when to initiate LSTs can be predictably manipulated. Factors that influence surrogate decisions about LSTs include the patient’s cognitive state, the patient’s age, the percentage of doctors not recommending the initia…Read more
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26The good life: Unifying the philosophy and psychology of well-being (review)Philosophical Psychology 29 (8): 1253-1255. 2016.
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25Claims About Surrogate Decision-Making Accuracy Require Empirical EvidenceAmerican Journal of Bioethics 12 (10): 41-43. 2012.The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 10, Page 41-43, October 2012.
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22The terror of ‘terrorists’: an investigation in experimental applied ethicsBehavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 6 (3): 195-211. 2014.Some theorists argue that appropriate responses to terrorism are in part shaped by popular sentiment. In two experiments, using representative design and ecological stimuli (e.g. actual news reports), we present evidence for some of the ways popular sentiment about terrorism tracks theory and can be constructed. In Experiment 1, we document that using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe a group of people decreases willingness to understand the group's grievances, decreases willingness to negotiate …Read more
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18Experimental PhilosophyAnalyse & Kritik 31 (2): 201-219. 2009.Experimental philosophy is a new approach to philosophy that incorporates the experimental methodologies of psychology, behavioral economics, and sociology. Experimental philosophers generally maintain that, in addition to traditional philosophical practices, these ways of gathering evidence can be instrumental in shedding light on philosophically important issues. Rather than relying on their own intuitions about specific cases, experimental philosophers perform systematic experiments to determ…Read more
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16The free will and punishment scale: Efficient measurement and predictive validity across diverse and nationally representative adult samplesConsciousness and Cognition 95 (C): 103215. 2021.
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11Personality and Philosophical BiasIn Justin Sytsma & Wesley Buckwalter (eds.), A Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Wiley. 2016.Heritable personality traits often predict fundamental philosophical disagreement. This conclusion is based on studies of more than 15,000 people sampled from diverse cultures and educational backgrounds, including verifiable experts. In this chapter, we review some of this research showing links between personality and philosophical bias in free will, intentional action, and ethics. Our discussion focuses on serious challenges that these philosophical biases pose (e.g., limits on the use of phi…Read more
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Personality and philosophical biasIn Wesley Buckwalter & Justin Sytsma (eds.), A Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Wiley & Sons. 2016.
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Michigan Technological UniversityRegular Faculty
Houghton, Michigan, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |