Justin Sytsma
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 459655 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Justin Sytsma |
| NOMBRES | Justin |
| APELLIDO | Sytsma |
| FIRMA | SYTSMA J |
| AFILIACIONES | Victoria University of Wellington |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4626-3805 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 21 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 29 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 20 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2007 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Blame for Hum(e)an Beings
How does character information inform judgments of blame? Some argue that character information is indirectly relevant to blame because it enriches judgments about the mental states of a wrongdoer. Others argue that character information is directly relevant to blame, even when character traits are causally irrelevant to the wrongdoing. We propose an empirical synthesis of these views: a two channel model of blame. The model predicts that charact…
Analytic atheism and analytic apostasy across cultures
Reflective thinking often predicts less belief in God or less religiosity – so-called analytic atheism. However, those correlations involve limitations: widely used tests of reflection confound reflection with ancillary abilities such as numeracy; some studies do not detect analytic atheism in every country; experimentally encouraging reflection makes some non-believers more open to believing in God; and one of the most common online research par…
Experimental Philosophy for Beginners
Mutual entailment between causation and responsibility
The standard view in philosophy is that responsibility entails causation. Most philosophers treat this entailment claim as an evident insight into the ordinary concepts of responsibility and causation. Further, it is taken to be equally obvious that the reversal of this claim does not hold: causation does not entail responsibility. In contrast, Sytsma and Livengood have put forward an account of the use of ordinary causal attributions (statements…
Experience’, ordinary and philosophical
Common arguments for realism about phenomenal consciousness contend that this is a folk concept, with proponents expecting it to be lexicalised in ordinary language. In English, the word ‘experience’ is typically regarded as the best candidate. This predicts that ‘experience’ will be used to refer to mental states and episodes, not only in philosophical but also in ordinary discourse. We conduct a corpus study in order to assess this claim and to…
Crossed Wires
Philosophers and psychologists often assume that responsibility and blame only apply to certain agents. But do our ordinary concepts of responsibility and blame reflect these assumptions? I investigate one recent debate where these assumptions have been applied—the back-and-forth over how to explain the impact of norms on ordinary causal attributions. I investigate one prominent case where it has been found that norms matter for causal attributio…
Has the side-effect effect been cancelled? (No, not yet.)
A large body of research has found that people judge bad foreseen side effects to be more intentional than good ones. While the standard interpretation of this Side-Effect Effect (SEE) takes it to show that the ordinary concept of intentionality is influenced by normative considerations, a competing account holds that it is the result of pragmatic pressure to express moral censure and, thus, that the SEE is an experimental artifact. Attempts to c…
Causation, Responsibility, and Typicality
Causal attributions and the trolley problem
In this paper, we consider two competing explanations of the empirical finding that people’s causal attributions are responsive to normative details, such as whether an agent’s action violated an injunctive norm – the counterfactual view and the responsibility view. We then present experimental evidence that uses the trolley dilemma in a new way to investigate causal attribution. In the switch version of the trolley problem, people judge that the…
Zombie intuitions
The meta-wisdom of crowds
Inappropriate stereotypical inferences? An adversarial collaboration in experimental ordinary language philosophy
This paper trials new experimental methods for the analysis of natural language reasoning and the (re)development of critical ordinary language philosophy in the wake of J.L. Austin. Philosophical arguments and thought experiments are strongly shaped by default pragmatic inferences, including stereotypical inferences. Austin suggested that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are at the root of some philosophical paradoxes and prob…
Unfelt pain
Actual Causation and Compositionality
Many theories of actual causation implicitly endorse the claim that if c is an actual cause of e , then either c causes e directly or every intermediary by which c indirectly causes e is itself both an actual cause of e and also an actual effect of c . We think this compositionality constraint is plausible. However, as we show, it is not always satisfied by the causal attributions ordinary people make. We conclude by considering what philosophers…
A Companion to Experimental Philosophy
This is a comprehensive collection of essays that explores cutting-edge work in experimental philosophy, a radical new movement that applies quantitative and empirical methods to traditional topics of philosophical inquiry.
Rethinking the scope of experimental philosophy
On the relevance of folk intuitions
Two types of typicality
Folk Psychology and Phenomenal Consciousness
In studying folk psychology, cognitive and developmental psychologists have mainly focused on how people conceive of non‐experiential states, such as beliefs and desires. As a result, we know very little about how the non‐philosophers (or the folk) understand the mental states that philosophers typically classify as being phenomenally conscious. In particular, it is not known whether the folk even tend to classify mental states in terms of their …
Phenomenological Obviousness and the New Science of Consciousness
Is phenomenal consciousness a problem for the brain sciences? An increasing number of researchers hold not only that it is but that its very existence is a deep mystery. That this problematic phenomenon exists is generally taken for granted: It is asserted that phenomenal consciousness is just phenomenologically obvious. In contrast, I hold that there is no such phenomenon and, thus, that it does not pose a problem for the brain sciences. For thi…
Neuroscience and Theoretical Psychology
This paper explores three connected claims about the interrelation of psychology and neuroscience that occur in discussions within theoretical psychology. The first and second claims are that neuroscience cannot offer a complete account of human psychology because it can show only correlations between neural events and cognitive or behavioral events. The third claim is that neuroscience ultimately is incomplete or irrelevant to psychological acco…
Two types of typicality
Unfelt pain
Inappropriate stereotypical inferences? An adversarial collaboration in experimental ordinary language philosophy
This paper trials new experimental methods for the analysis of natural language reasoning and the (re)development of critical ordinary language philosophy in the wake of J.L. Austin. Philosophical arguments and thought experiments are strongly shaped by default pragmatic inferences, including stereotypical inferences. Austin suggested that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are at the root of some philosophical paradoxes and prob…
Actual Causation and Compositionality
Many theories of actual causation implicitly endorse the claim that if c is an actual cause of e , then either c causes e directly or every intermediary by which c indirectly causes e is itself both an actual cause of e and also an actual effect of c . We think this compositionality constraint is plausible. However, as we show, it is not always satisfied by the causal attributions ordinary people make. We conclude by considering what philosophers…
Phenomenological Obviousness and the New Science of Consciousness
Is phenomenal consciousness a problem for the brain sciences? An increasing number of researchers hold not only that it is but that its very existence is a deep mystery. That this problematic phenomenon exists is generally taken for granted: It is asserted that phenomenal consciousness is just phenomenologically obvious. In contrast, I hold that there is no such phenomenon and, thus, that it does not pose a problem for the brain sciences. For thi…
Experience’, ordinary and philosophical
Common arguments for realism about phenomenal consciousness contend that this is a folk concept, with proponents expecting it to be lexicalised in ordinary language. In English, the word ‘experience’ is typically regarded as the best candidate. This predicts that ‘experience’ will be used to refer to mental states and episodes, not only in philosophical but also in ordinary discourse. We conduct a corpus study in order to assess this claim and to…
Folk Psychology and Phenomenal Consciousness
In studying folk psychology, cognitive and developmental psychologists have mainly focused on how people conceive of non‐experiential states, such as beliefs and desires. As a result, we know very little about how the non‐philosophers (or the folk) understand the mental states that philosophers typically classify as being phenomenally conscious. In particular, it is not known whether the folk even tend to classify mental states in terms of their …
Neuroscience and Theoretical Psychology
This paper explores three connected claims about the interrelation of psychology and neuroscience that occur in discussions within theoretical psychology. The first and second claims are that neuroscience cannot offer a complete account of human psychology because it can show only correlations between neural events and cognitive or behavioral events. The third claim is that neuroscience ultimately is incomplete or irrelevant to psychological acco…
Phenomenological Obviousness and the New Science of Consciousness
Is phenomenal consciousness a problem for the brain sciences? An increasing number of researchers hold not only that it is but that its very existence is a deep mystery. That this problematic phenomenon exists is generally taken for granted: It is asserted that phenomenal consciousness is just phenomenologically obvious. In contrast, I hold that there is no such phenomenon and, thus, that it does not pose a problem for the brain sciences. For thi…
Folk Psychology and Phenomenal Consciousness
In studying folk psychology, cognitive and developmental psychologists have mainly focused on how people conceive of non‐experiential states, such as beliefs and desires. As a result, we know very little about how the non‐philosophers (or the folk) understand the mental states that philosophers typically classify as being phenomenally conscious. In particular, it is not known whether the folk even tend to classify mental states in terms of their …
On the relevance of folk intuitions
Two types of typicality
A Companion to Experimental Philosophy
This is a comprehensive collection of essays that explores cutting-edge work in experimental philosophy, a radical new movement that applies quantitative and empirical methods to traditional topics of philosophical inquiry.
Rethinking the scope of experimental philosophy
Unfelt pain
Actual Causation and Compositionality
Many theories of actual causation implicitly endorse the claim that if c is an actual cause of e , then either c causes e directly or every intermediary by which c indirectly causes e is itself both an actual cause of e and also an actual effect of c . We think this compositionality constraint is plausible. However, as we show, it is not always satisfied by the causal attributions ordinary people make. We conclude by considering what philosophers…
Causation, Responsibility, and Typicality
Causal attributions and the trolley problem
In this paper, we consider two competing explanations of the empirical finding that people’s causal attributions are responsive to normative details, such as whether an agent’s action violated an injunctive norm – the counterfactual view and the responsibility view. We then present experimental evidence that uses the trolley dilemma in a new way to investigate causal attribution. In the switch version of the trolley problem, people judge that the…
Zombie intuitions
The meta-wisdom of crowds
Inappropriate stereotypical inferences? An adversarial collaboration in experimental ordinary language philosophy
This paper trials new experimental methods for the analysis of natural language reasoning and the (re)development of critical ordinary language philosophy in the wake of J.L. Austin. Philosophical arguments and thought experiments are strongly shaped by default pragmatic inferences, including stereotypical inferences. Austin suggested that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are at the root of some philosophical paradoxes and prob…
Crossed Wires
Philosophers and psychologists often assume that responsibility and blame only apply to certain agents. But do our ordinary concepts of responsibility and blame reflect these assumptions? I investigate one recent debate where these assumptions have been applied—the back-and-forth over how to explain the impact of norms on ordinary causal attributions. I investigate one prominent case where it has been found that norms matter for causal attributio…
Has the side-effect effect been cancelled? (No, not yet.)
A large body of research has found that people judge bad foreseen side effects to be more intentional than good ones. While the standard interpretation of this Side-Effect Effect (SEE) takes it to show that the ordinary concept of intentionality is influenced by normative considerations, a competing account holds that it is the result of pragmatic pressure to express moral censure and, thus, that the SEE is an experimental artifact. Attempts to c…
Mutual entailment between causation and responsibility
The standard view in philosophy is that responsibility entails causation. Most philosophers treat this entailment claim as an evident insight into the ordinary concepts of responsibility and causation. Further, it is taken to be equally obvious that the reversal of this claim does not hold: causation does not entail responsibility. In contrast, Sytsma and Livengood have put forward an account of the use of ordinary causal attributions (statements…
Experience’, ordinary and philosophical
Common arguments for realism about phenomenal consciousness contend that this is a folk concept, with proponents expecting it to be lexicalised in ordinary language. In English, the word ‘experience’ is typically regarded as the best candidate. This predicts that ‘experience’ will be used to refer to mental states and episodes, not only in philosophical but also in ordinary discourse. We conduct a corpus study in order to assess this claim and to…
Experimental Philosophy for Beginners
Blame for Hum(e)an Beings
How does character information inform judgments of blame? Some argue that character information is indirectly relevant to blame because it enriches judgments about the mental states of a wrongdoer. Others argue that character information is directly relevant to blame, even when character traits are causally irrelevant to the wrongdoing. We propose an empirical synthesis of these views: a two channel model of blame. The model predicts that charact…
Analytic atheism and analytic apostasy across cultures
Reflective thinking often predicts less belief in God or less religiosity – so-called analytic atheism. However, those correlations involve limitations: widely used tests of reflection confound reflection with ancillary abilities such as numeracy; some studies do not detect analytic atheism in every country; experimentally encouraging reflection makes some non-believers more open to believing in God; and one of the most common online research par…
Epistemology (19 obras) · Philosophy (18 obras) · Psychology (16 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (13 obras) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (10 obras) · Metaphysics (10 obras) · Social Psychology (9 obras) · Philosophy of science (8 obras) · Attribution (7 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras)