•  3
  •  137
    The case for Nietzschean moral psychology
    In Brian Leiter & Neil Sinhababu (eds.), Nietzsche and morality, Oxford University Press. 2007.
    Contemporary moral psychology has been dominated by two broad traditions, one usually associated with Aristotle, the other with Kant. The broadly Aristotelian approach emphasizes the role of childhood upbringing in the development of good moral character, and the role of such character in ethical behavior. The broadly Kantian approach emphasizes the role of freely chosen conscious moral principles in ethical behavior. We review a growing body of experimental evidence that suggests that both of t…Read more
  •  166
    Ordinary ethical reasoning and the ideal of 'being yourself'
    Philosophical Psychology 18 (3). 2005.
    The psychological study of ethical reasoning tends to concentrate on a few specific issues, with the bulk of the research going to the study of people's attitudes toward moral rules or the welfare of others. But people's ethical reasoning is also shaped by a wide range of other concerns. Here I focus on the importance that people attach to the ideal of being yourself. It is shown that certain experimental results - results that seemed anomalous and inexplicable to researchers who focused on mora…Read more
  •  871
    Free Will and the Scientific Vision
    In Edouard Machery & Elizabeth O'Neill (eds.), Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy, Routledge. 2014.
    A review of existing work in experimental philosophy on intuitions about free will. The paper argues that people ordinarily understand free human action, not as something that is caused by psychological states (beliefs, desires, etc.) but as something that completely transcends the normal causal order.
  •  214
    There has been a long-standing dispute in the philosophical literature about the conditions under which a behavior counts as 'intentional.' Much of the debate turns on questions about the use of certain words and phrases in ordinary language. The present paper investigates these questions empirically, using experimental techniques to investigate people's use of the relevant words and phrases. g.
  •  1576
    Contrastive Knowledge Surveyed
    Noûs 46 (4): 675-708. 2010.
    Suppose that Ann says, “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” Her audience may well agree. Her knowledge ascription may seem true. But now suppose that Ben—in a different context—also says “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” His audience may well disagree. His knowledge ascription may seem false. Indeed, a number of philosophers have claimed that people’s intuitions about knowledge ascriptions are context sensitive, in the sense that the very same knowledge ascription …Read more
  •  36
    Experimental philosophy
    The Philosophers' Magazine 50 72-73. 2007.
  •  142
    Theory of mind and moral cognition: Exploring the connections
    Trends in Cognitive Science 9 (8): 357-359. 2005.
    An extremely brief (3 page) review of recent work on the ways in which people's moral judgments can influence their use of folk-psychological concepts
  •  480
    Answers to five questions
    In Jesús H. Aguilar & Andrei A. Buckareff (eds.), Philosophy of Action: 5 Questions, Automatic Press/vip. 2009.
    Back when I was a college freshman, I started working as a research assistant to a young graduate student named Bertram Malle. I hadn’t actually known very much about Malle’s work when I first signed up for the position, but as luck would have it, he was a brilliant researcher with an innovative new approach. Malle was interested in understanding people’s ordinary intuitions about intentional action – the way in which people’s ascriptions of belief, desire, awareness and so forth ultimately feed…Read more
  •  152
    Responsibility
    with John Doris
    In John M. Doris (ed.), Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press. 2010.
    A great deal of fascinating research has gone into an attempt to uncover the fundamental criteria that people use when assigning moral responsibility. Nonetheless, it seems that most existing accounts fall prey to one counterexample or another. The underlying problem, we suggest, is that there simply isn't any single system of criteria that people apply in all cases of responsibility attribution. Instead, it appears that people use quite different criteria in different kinds of cases. [This pape…Read more
  •  5436
    The true self: A psychological concept distinct from the self
    with Nina Strohminger and George Newman
    Perspectives on Psychological Science. forthcoming.
    A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and identify features…Read more
  •  122
    Is morality relative? Depends on your personality
    The Philosophers' Magazine 52 (52): 66-71. 2011.
  •  1179
    Normality and actual causal strength
    with Thomas F. Icard and Jonathan F. Kominsky
    Cognition 161 (C): 80-93. 2017.
    Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been obse…Read more
  •  74
    Folk judgments of causation
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (2): 238-242. 2009.
    Experimental studies suggest that people’s ordinary causal judgments are affected not only by statistical considerations but also by moral considerations. One way to explain these results would be to construct a model according to which people are trying to make a purely statistical judgment but moral considerations somehow distort their intuitions. The present paper offers an alternative perspective. Specifically, the author proposes a model according to which the very same underlying mechanism…Read more
  •  98
    For Knobe, observers evaluate mental states by comparing agents' statements with the attitudes they are expected to hold. In our analysis, Knobe's model relies primarily on what agents should think, and little on expectancies of what they would think. We show the importance and complexity of including descriptive and prescriptive norms if one is to take expectancies seriously
  •  536
    It is widely believed that the primary function of folk psychology lies in the prediction, explanation and control of behavior. A question arises, however, as to whether folk psychology has also been shaped in fundamental ways by the various other roles it plays in people’s lives. Here I approach that question by considering one particular aspect of folk psychology – the distinction between intentional and unintentional behaviors. The aim is to determine whether this distinction is best understo…Read more
  •  120
    More than a body: Mind perception and the nature of objectification
    with Kurt Gray, Mark Sheskin, Paul Bloom, and Lisa Feldman Barrett
    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101 (6): 1207-1220. 2011.
    According to models of objectification, viewing someone as a body induces de-mentalization, stripping away their psychological traits. Here evidence is presented for an alternative account, where a body focus does not diminish the attribution of all mental capacities but, instead, leads perceivers to infer a different kind of mind. Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, it is found that focusing on someone's body reduces perceptions of agency but increases p…Read more
  •  1291
    The philosophical study of mind in the twentieth century was dominated by a research program that used a priori methods to address foundational questions. Since that time, however, the philosophical study of mind has undergone a dramatic shift. To provide a more accurate picture of contemporary philosophical work, I compared a sample of highly cited philosophy papers from the past five years with a sample of highly cited philosophy papers from the twentieth century. In the twentieth century samp…Read more
  •  209
    The concept of innateness appears in systematic research within cognitive science, but it also appears in less systematic modes of thought that long predate the scientific study of the mind. The present studies therefore explore the relationship between the properly scientific uses of this concept and its role in ordinary folk understanding. Studies 1-4 examined the judgments of people with no specific training in cognitive science. Results showed (a) that judgments about whether a trait was inn…Read more
  •  667
    Intuitions about consciousness: Experimental studies
    with Jesse Prinz
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (1): 67-83. 2008.
    When people are trying to determine whether an entity is capable of having certain kinds of mental states, they can proceed either by thinking about the entity from a *functional* standpoint or by thinking about the entity from a *physical* standpoint. We conducted a series of studies to determine how each of these standpoints impact people’s mental state ascriptions. The results point to a striking asymmetry. It appears that ascriptions of states involving phenomenal consciousness are sensitive…Read more