Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 483533 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Walter Sinnott-Armstrong |
| PRENOMES | Walter |
| SOBRENOME | Sinnott-Armstrong |
| ASSINATURA | SINNOTT-ARMSTRONG W |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Duke University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2579-9966 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 60 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 69 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 57 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 3 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1984 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Burden of Proof in Philosophy
Philosophy needs a methodology, including rules about burden of proof, in order to resolve many of its classic issues. Law might seem to provide a helpful model for assigning burdens of proof. However, candidate rules that distribute burden of proof according to form, degree of belief, and consequences all fail to help when inspected closely. This gap makes it difficult to see how to resolve many of the most important philosophical issues
Developing intellectual humility
This article presents an overview and critique of current interdisciplinary research on the nature and development of intellectual humility (IH), with the aim of systematically outlining currently debated open questions. We focus on four specific areas of research: (1) theoretical questions regarding the nature of IH, (2) issues with the measurement of IH in development, (3) existing research on the development of IH and related socio-cognitive a…
Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI
Who did it? Moral wrongness for us and them in the UK, US, and Brazil
Morality has traditionally been described in terms of an impartial and objective “moral law”, and moral psychological research has largely followed in this vein, focusing on abstract moral judgments. But might our moral judgments be shaped not just by what the action is, but who is doing it? We looked at ratings of moral wrongness, manipulating whether the person doing the action was a friend, a refugee, or a stranger. We looked at these ratings …
Respecting formerly autonomous persons
Loyalty as a Legitimizer of Wage Theft
From Contextualism to Contrastivism in Moral Theory
In Morality by Degrees , Alastair Norcross presents contextualist accounts of good and right acts as well as harm and free will. All of his analyses compare what is assessed with “the appropriate alternative,” which is supposed to vary with context. This paper clarifies Norcross's approach, distinguishes it from previous versions of moral contextualism and contrastivism, and reveals difficulties in adequately specifying the context and the approp…
U.S. citizens’ judgments of moral transgressions against fellow citizens, refugees, and undocumented immigrants
Prior work shows that people are often more sensitive to moral transgressions that target ingroup members than outgroup members. But does that depend on which groups are involved? We investigate how lifelong U.S. citizen participants make judgments about moral transgressions that target fellow lifelong citizens, compared with refugees or undocumented immigrants. Across five studies ( N = 1,953), we find that participants overall judge moderate tr…
Does conscious perception render agents more responsible? A study of lay judgments
Mental Disorders as Failures of Attention
The DSM–5 characterizes mental disorders as significant disturbances in cognition, emotion, or behavior. But what might unite the disturbances on this list? We hypothesize that mental disorders can all be meaningfully characterized as failures of attention. We understand these as failures to distribute attention in the way one has most reason to, and we include both failures of tendency and of ability. We discuss six examples of mental disorders …
Does it matter who harmed whom? A cross-cultural study of moral judgments about harm by and to insiders and outsiders
This cross-cultural study compared judgments of moral wrongness for physical and emotional harm with varying combinations of in-group vs. out-group agents and victims across six countries: the United States of America (N = 937), the United Kingdom (N = 995), Romania (N = 782), Brazil (N = 856), South Korea (N = 1776), and China (N = 1008). Consistent with our hypothesis we found evidence of an insider agent effect, where moral violations committe…
How Stable are Moral Judgments
Psychologists and philosophers often work hand in hand to investigate many aspects of moral cognition. In this paper, we want to highlight one aspect that to date has been relatively neglected: the stability of moral judgment over time. After explaining why philosophers and psychologists should consider stability and then surveying previous research, we will present the results of an original three-wave longitudinal study. We asked participants t…
Moral foundations elicit shared and dissociable cortical activation modulated by political ideology
Freedom from what? Separating lay concepts of freedom
Debates about freedom of will and action and their connections with moral responsibility have raged for centuries, but the opposing sides might disagree because they use different concepts of freedom. Based on previous work, we hypothesized that people who assert freedom in a determined (D) or counterfactual-intervener (CI) scenario assert this because they are thinking about freedom from constraint and not about freedom from determination (in D)…
Making moral principles suit yourself
Moral framing effects within subjects
Several philosophers and psychologists have argued that evidence of moral framing effects shows that many of our moral judgments are unreliable. However, all previous empirical work on moral framing effects has used between-subject experimental designs. We argue that between-subject designs alone do not allow us to accurately estimate the extent of moral framing effects or to properly evaluate the case from framing effects against the reliability…
Contrastive mental causation
Moral dilemmas and trust in leaders during a global health crisis
Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people to save many others ('instrumental harm') reduces trust, while maximizing the welfare of everyone equ…
Moral conformity and its philosophical lessons
The psychological and philosophical literature exploring the role of social influence in moral judgments suggests that conformity in moral judgments is common and, in many cases, seems to be motivated by epistemic rather than purely social concerns. We argue that there is strong reason to suppose that moral conformity leads to unreliable moral judgments, and, insofar as this is true, the prevalence of conformity proves a problem for both humility…
Exposure to opposing reasons reduces negative impressions of ideological opponents
Think again
In a polarized world, a good argument can help create understanding, respect, and compromise. The key is the word 'good' : arguments should not resort to put-downs, abuse, accusations, or avoidance of issues. Sinnott-Armstrong shows readers what arguments are--and what good they can do. When one understands and appreciates strong evidence, it is not necessary to 'win' the argument merely to engage in constructive conversation
Moral Psychology
Be it ever so humble
What does it mean to be humble? We argue that humility is an epistemically and ethically aligned state of awareness – the experience of ourselves as a small part of a larger universe and as one among a host of other morally relevant beings. So conceived, humility can be operationalized and measured along the dual dimensions of low self-focus and high other-focus and is distinct from other related constructs (e.g., modesty and open-mindedness). We…
Mind control as a guide for the mind
Readiness potentials driven by non-motoric processes
Ought' Conversationally Implies `Can
The principle that 'ought' implies 'can' is often taken for granted in discussions of determinism, moral dilemmas, and other areas of practical reasoning. Yet the principle is seldom discussed critically or in detail. A complete discussion would include analyses of the controversial terms 'ought' and 'can', but I need not here undertake such enterprises. Any plausible analyses which do not beg the question are compatible with what I have to say, …
Exposure to opposing reasons reduces negative impressions of ideological opponents
Expressivism and Embedding
Expressivism faces four distinct problems when evaluative sentences are embedded in unassertive contexts like: (1) If lying is wrong, getting someone to lie is wrong, (2) Lying is wrong, so (3) Getting someone to lie is wrong. The initial problem is to show that expressivism is compatible with (1)-(3) being valid. The basic problem is for expressivists to explain why evaluative instances of modus ponens are valid. The deeper problem is to explain…
Moral dilemmas and trust in leaders during a global health crisis
Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people to save many others ('instrumental harm') reduces trust, while maximizing the welfare of everyone equ…
An Argument for Consequentialism
The most common way to choose among moral theories is to test how well they cohere with our intuitions or considered judgments about what is morally right and wrong, about the nature or ideal of a person, and about the purpose(s) of morality.1 Another kind of intuition is often overlooked. We also have intuitions about principles of practical and moral reasoning, such as those captured by deontic logic. In order to be principles of reasoning rath…
Moral foundations elicit shared and dissociable cortical activation modulated by political ideology
Contrastive mental causation
Neuroimages as evidence in a mens rea defense
Recent developments in the neuropsychology of criminal behavior have given rise to concerns that neuroimaging evidence (such as MRI and functional MRI [fMRI] images) could unduly influence jurors. Across four experiments, a nationally representative sample of 1,476 jury-eligible participants evaluated written summaries of criminal cases in which expert testimony was presented in support of a mental disorder as exculpatory. The evidence varied in …
Subcomponents of psychopathy have opposing correlations with punishment judgments
Psychopathy research is plagued by an enigma: Psychopaths reliably act immorally, but they also accurately report whether an action is morally wrong. The current study revealed that cooperative suppressor effects and conflicting subsets of personality traits within the construct of psychopathy might help explain this conundrum. Among a sample of adult male offenders (N = 100) who ranked deserved punishment of crimes, Psychopathy Checklist-Revised…
Moderate Classy Pyrrhonian Moral Scepticism
This précis summarizes my book Moral Skepticisms, with emphasis on my contrastivist analysis of justified moral belief and my Pyrrhonian moral scepticism based on meta‐scepticism about relevance. This complex moral epistemology escapes a common paradox facing moral philosophers
What’s wrong? Moral understanding in psychopathic offenders
Nihilism and Scepticism About Moral Obligations
There are many disagreements about what people have moral obligations to do, but almost everyone believes that some people have some moral obligations. Moreover, there are some moral obligations in which almost everyone believes. For example, if I promise to give a talk at this conference, I have a moral obligation to do so. Of course, my obligation might be overridden. Moreover, even if my obligation were overridden, I would still have a moral o…
Spreading the Word
Provides a comprehensive introduction to the major philosophical theories attempting to explain the workings of language
Ought' Conversationally Implies `Can
The principle that 'ought' implies 'can' is often taken for granted in discussions of determinism, moral dilemmas, and other areas of practical reasoning. Yet the principle is seldom discussed critically or in detail. A complete discussion would include analyses of the controversial terms 'ought' and 'can', but I need not here undertake such enterprises. Any plausible analyses which do not beg the question are compatible with what I have to say, …
Spreading the Word
Provides a comprehensive introduction to the major philosophical theories attempting to explain the workings of language
Moral Relevance and Moral Conflict
Moral Dilemmas
Moral Experience and Justification
Moral Dilemmas
Moral Dilemmas
An Argument for Consequentialism
The most common way to choose among moral theories is to test how well they cohere with our intuitions or considered judgments about what is morally right and wrong, about the nature or ideal of a person, and about the purpose(s) of morality.1 Another kind of intuition is often overlooked. We also have intuitions about principles of practical and moral reasoning, such as those captured by deontic logic. In order to be principles of reasoning rath…
Nihilism and Scepticism About Moral Obligations
There are many disagreements about what people have moral obligations to do, but almost everyone believes that some people have some moral obligations. Moreover, there are some moral obligations in which almost everyone believes. For example, if I promise to give a talk at this conference, I have a moral obligation to do so. Of course, my obligation might be overridden. Moreover, even if my obligation were overridden, I would still have a moral o…
The Structure of Justification
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access The Structure of Justification. By Robert Audi. (Cambridge UP, 1993. Pp. x + 481. Price £45-00h/b, £14-95 p/b) Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Dartmouth College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 45, Issue 180, July 1995, Pages 394–397, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219665 Published: 01 July 1995
Moral Dilemmas and Rights
It is pointless to argue about whether moral dilemmas are possible unless the arguers agree about what a moral dilemma is. It doesn’t help to define moral dilemmas in terms that are unclear or disputed. It also doesn’t help to ask which definition of “moral dilemma” is the correct one: “Moral dilemma” is a technical term in these contexts, and different philosophers use it to refer to different kinds of situations. Thus, the only reasonable appro…
Morality, Normativity, and Society
Expressivism and Embedding
Expressivism faces four distinct problems when evaluative sentences are embedded in unassertive contexts like: (1) If lying is wrong, getting someone to lie is wrong, (2) Lying is wrong, so (3) Getting someone to lie is wrong. The initial problem is to show that expressivism is compatible with (1)-(3) being valid. The basic problem is for expressivists to explain why evaluative instances of modus ponens are valid. The deeper problem is to explain…
What is Consequentialism? A Reply to Howard-Snyder
If there is a moral reason for A to do X, and if A cannot do X without doing Y, and if doing Y will enable A to do X, then there is a moral reason for A to do Y. This principle is plausible but mysterious, so it needs to be explained. It can be explained by necessary enabler consequentialism, but not by other consequentialisms or any deontological moral theory. Or so I argue. Frances Howard-Snyder objects that this argument fails to establish con…
Experience and Foundationalism in Audi's The Architecture of Reason
Pyrrhonian Skepticism
Skepticism poses a central challenge in epistemology, but its opponents focus on Cartesian or Academic skepticism, whereas almost all actual defenders of skepticism are Pyrrhonians who suspend belief about Cartesian skepticism and its denial. To remedy this imbalance, this volume explores the history of Pyrrhonian skepticism and then looks at objections to Pyrrhonian skepticism and its relation to other alternatives in contemporary epistemology.
Perspectives on Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics, Ethics
This book explores the interplay between science, economics, politics, and ethics in understanding the challenge that climate change poses to the international community. A central theme is that climate change involves core issues of scientific uncertainty and intergenerational fairness that must be accounted for in the design and implementation of policy responses. Drawing together contributions from leading scholars in a variety of relevant dis…
Overcoming Christianity
my childhood was inundated with Christianity. It’s not that my family was especially religious. They weren’t. It was just that I grew up in Memphis. Like most southern U.S. cities in the 1960s, Memphis was overflowing with Christianity. There was more Christianity in Memphis than water in the Mississippi River. Just as the Mississippi was hard to escape when it flooded, so Christianity was unavoidable in Memphis, especially around Christmas, East…
Abstract + Concrete = Paradox
Every area of philosophy is beset, bemused, and beguiled by paradoxes, which are riddles with good reasons for contrary answers and no expert or rational consensus on which answer is best (Sorensen 2003). Some paradoxes depend on curious examples, such as in the liar paradox. Others arise out of ordinary life. The former bother only philosophers, but the latter bother both philosophers and common folk. The latter, ordinary kind of paradox will be…
Replies to Hough, Baumann and Blaauw
Journal Article Replies to Hough, Baumann and Blaauw Get access Walter Sinnott‐Armstrong Walter Sinnott‐Armstrong Dartmouth College, New Hampshire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 58, Issue 232, July 2008, Pages 478–488, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.561.x Published: 22 February 2008
Replies to Copp, Timmons, and Railton
Précis of Moral Scepticisms
Maybe I am projecting, but I suspect that many moral philosophers sense something right and also something wrong about moral skepticism. Such moral philosophers, like most people, hold strong moral beliefs but wonder how and how well they could justify those moral beliefs if challenged. Hence, they and I seek a compromise between moral skeptics and their critics. One major goal of my book, Moral Skepticisms (New York: OUP, 2006), is to propose su…
Moderate Classy Pyrrhonian Moral Scepticism
This précis summarizes my book Moral Skepticisms, with emphasis on my contrastivist analysis of justified moral belief and my Pyrrhonian moral scepticism based on meta‐scepticism about relevance. This complex moral epistemology escapes a common paradox facing moral philosophers
Understanding arguments
Conscious Will and Responsibility
We all seem to think that we do the acts we do because we consciously choose to do them. This commonsense view is thrown into dispute by Benjamin Libet's eyebrow-raising experiments, which seem to suggest that conscious will occurs not before but after the start of brain activity that produces physical action. Libet's striking results are often claimed to undermine traditional views of free will and moral responsibility, and to have practical imp…
Philosophy (32 obras) · Epistemology (31 obras) · Psychology (31 obras) · Social Psychology (21 obras) · Political science (16 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (16 obras) · Law (14 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras) · Philosophy (13 obras) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (12 obras)