A Note on Scope and Coverage
Books like this one are often measured not only by what is covered, but also by what is not. Although still young, the experimental philosophy movement has already produced more than what can adequately be treated in a short introduction, and so there are certain sins of omission in what follows.
A few of these deserve special mention, and some attention, however brief.Experimental Philosophy of Consciousness
Recently, there has been an explosion of interest in the experimental philosophy of consciousness and, in particular, interest in the distinction between phenomenal consciousness (experience) and non-phenomenal consciousness (agency). A great deal of this interest has focused on our folk psychological understanding of what is required in order for something to count as capable of phenomenal consciousness (as capable, for example, of seeing red or feeling pain), and whether those requirements differ from what is required in order for something to count as capable of non-phenomenal consciousness (as capable, for example, of forming beliefs, desires, and intentions). The early results have been fascinating, and suggest not only a rather complicated relationship between folk attributions of phenomenal consciousness and folk attributions of non-phenomenal consciousness (Gray et al. 2007, Knobe & Prinz 2008, Arico 2010, Huebner et al. 2010, Sytsma & Machery 2010, Arico et al. 2011), but also that folk psychological attributions of phenomenal consciousness are associated with attributions of moral standing (Robbins & Jack 2006, Gray & Wegner 2009). While a picture of the folk psychology of consciousness is beginning to emerge, more work will be needed in the coming years to explain the precise nature of the relationship between folk psychological attributions of phenomenal consciousness and attributions of non-phenomenal consciousness, and the cognitive process or processes that support both kinds of folk psychological mental state attributions.
Moral Philosophy and Moral Psychology
It is hard to over-emphasize the excitement and controversy surrounding much of the recent empirical work in moral psychology.
Recent work in moral psychology draws on both the empirical resources of the social and cognitive sciences and the traditional conceptual resources of philosophy in order to carefully examine how we think about moral and ethical issues. The results have been fascinating, calling into question not only more traditional ways of approaching these issues, but also a number of orthodox views in philosophical ethics.Character and Situation
Moral philosophers have often maintained that people possess robust character traits that are responsible for much of our moral and ethical behavior. Our character is not always virtuous, and can be influenced by contextual factors, but it is our moral character that explains the overall pattern of our moral and ethical behavior. While popular among moral philosophers, this view has come under attack in recent years due to the influence of empirical work in moral psychology. It turns out that people behave quite differently in different contexts, and that even minor contextual differences can influence our moral and ethical behavior. (See, for example, Isen & Levin 1972, Darley & Batson 1973, and Milgram 1974.) John Doris (1998, 2002) and Gilbert Harman (1999) argue that empirical findings spell trouble for character-based virtue ethics, arguing instead for a view they call situationism, according to which our moral and ethical behavior is determined not by robust character traits but instead in large part by contextual factors. (For recent discussions of the situationist challenge, including attempts to defend character-based virtue ethics, see Kupperman 2001, Sreenivasan 2002, Annas 2003, Kamtekar 2004, Appiah 2008, and Machery 2010.)
Reason and Emotion Philosophers have long debated the role that emotion plays in moral judgment. Recently, this debate has taken an empirical turn. Evidence from neuroscience, social and developmental psychology, and psychopathology all seem to point to the view that emotions are essential to morality.
The upshot has been a renewed interest in the idea that moral judgments are influenced in some manner by emotions or sentiments (dispositions to have certain emotions in certain circumstances). Shaun Nichols (2004b), for example, has argued that moral judgments arise from the interaction between our affective responses to certain events and normative theories specifying which actions are wrong. Nichols contends that both components of moral cognition are necessary since normative theories prohibit certain actions that we don't judge to be morally wrong (e.g., norms of etiquette) and we can have strong affective reactions to events without thinking that moral transgressions have occurred (e.g., a child falling down and skinning her knee). While these two parts of moral cognition are distinct, they come together in core moral judgments - judgments that involve “sentimental rules” that prohibit certain actions that are independently likely to elicit strong negative affective responses.Jesse Prinz (2007) advances an even stronger position about the relationship between emotion and moral judgment, which he calls strong emotionism. According to strong emotionism, both our moral concepts and moral properties themselves are essentially related to our emotional responses. Where Nichols thinks that there is a causal relationship between our emotional responses and our moral judgments, Prinz contends that the relationship is constitutive. (Actually, Prinz contends that moral sentiments are constitutive of both moral judgments and moral properties. This provides for the possibility that some moral judgment might not be accompanied by occurrent emotional responses.)
So there seems to be a strong causal or constitutive relationship between moral judgments and emotions or sentiments. This puts pressure on the idea, long popular in moral philosophy, that it is reason that plays an essential role in moral judgments.
At the very least, it seems like we must make room at the moral table for our emotions and sentiments. But, the outlook for reason might not even be this good. Jonathan Haidt (2001) has suggested that emotion and sentiment play such a significant role in moral judgments that deliberative reason typically comes in only after the fact to provide post-hoc rationalization of those moral judgments. If this is right, then reason becomes nothing more than apologist to moral judgment.Neuroethics
One of the most interesting developments in recent moral psychology involves the use of functional neuroimaging technology to study moral cognition. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology allows scientists to examine what areas of the brain are active when people make moral judgments and, by virtue of this, to better understand the different cognitive processes that are involved in making those judgments. Joshua Greene, for example, has used fMRI technology to advance what he calls a “dual process” theory of moral cognition, according to which characteristically deontological judgments are associated with emotional neural processes and characteristically consequentialist judgments are associated with deliberative cognitive processes (see, e.g., Greene et al. 2001 and Greene 2008). One advantage of the dual process theory is that it helps us understand the trolley problem, that is, why we think that it is morally permissible to sacrifice the life of an innocent bystander in certain versions of the trolley case but not in others. Greene (2003, 2008) and Peter Singer (2005) have also used evidence from neuroscientific studies of moral cognition as part of a normative argument about which kinds of moral judgments should be employed in moral philosophy. They contend that we have good reason to discount characteristically deontological judgments; namely, deontological judgments are sensitive to morally irrelevant factors and are associated with cognitive processes that weren't evolutionarily selected to track moral facts.
While this argument has proved to be rather controversial (see, e.g., Berker 2009), the idea that neuroscience can play some role in not only moral psychology but also moral philosophy is gaining more and more acceptance in both science and philosophy.Moral Reflection and Moral Behavior
When asked to explain the value of philosophical education, philosophers often suggest among other things that thinking carefully about normative issues can have a positive effect on moral agency. The idea is that careful moral reflection improves moral behavior, and that this is the true value of moral education. It's a nice story, but there is reason to worry that it isn't true. If moral education improves moral performance, then we might expect professional ethicists to be models of moral agency and to behave better than non-ethicists. After all, they devote their professional lives to moral reflection and moral education, and presumably care deeply about morality itself. Yet, professional ethicists seem to be no more charitable (Schwitzgebel & Rust, forthcoming), politically conscientious (Schwitzgebel & Rust 2010), or courteous (Schwitzgebel et al., forthcoming) than non-ethicists, and even seem to be more likely to engage in certain kinds of morally objectionable behavior (Schwitzgebel 2009). This makes it difficult to sustain the idea that moral education truly is ameliorative in nature, and suggests that the value of moral education must be found elsewhere. (Interestingly, not only does empirical research suggest that professional ethicists aren't models of moral agency, it also suggests that philosophers might already have known this at some level. See, for example, Schwitzgebel and Rust (2009). This makes it difficult to explain how the story rehearsed at the beginning of this paragraph got told in the first place.)
Experimental Philosophy of Science
Finally, it is worth briefly mentioning some extremely interesting work in the experimental philosophy of science that is concerned with understanding how we understand key scientific concepts - concepts like explanation and gene, to pick just two.
Explanation
We want to understand the world, and this means at least in part being able to explain why some things happen and others don't.
But, what does it mean to explain why something happened (or didn't), and why does it matter so much to us to be able to do so? Recent empirical work by Tania Lombrozo (2006, 2011, and Lombrozo & Carey 2006) has begun to shed light on both of these questions. It turns out that we seem to prefer functional explanations (explanations in terms of reasons, functions, and goals) and that, while we tend to think that there is something intrinsically valuable about being able to provide explanations, this feeling is best explained in terms of the instrumental value that explanations have in our daily and scientific lives. Being able to explain why something happens supports our more practical goals of prediction and control, and we are sensitive to the explanatory properties that are themselves responsible for the practical benefits. We value explanations with those properties precisely because those properties give rise to practical benefits, even when we aren't consciously aware that these properties are responsible for the practical benefits.Gene
According to the “classical theory” of concepts, concepts are associated with sets of individually necessary and jointly sufficient characteristics. While some scientific concepts seem to fit this model, others don't. (The same, of course, is true for non-scientific concepts as well.) Instead, some scientific concepts are vague or ambiguous, acquiring specific meanings in the different scientific contexts in which they are used. Recent empirical work by Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz (2006, 2007) suggests that gene is this kind of concept; what it means for something to be a gene depends at least in part on the specific scientific context in which the concept is being used. But, if the concept gene is heterogeneous, and its meaning changes from context to context, then it becomes important to be able to determine not only what different meanings are in play but also when a specific meaning is in play. This turns out to be no easy task, and requires careful empirical examination not only of the different scientific contexts in which the concept gene is used, but also the way the concept has evolved in the history of biology. What we find is a remarkable pattern of different meanings across different scientific contexts.
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