Research suggests that causal judgment is influenced primarily by counterfactual or covariational reasoning. In contrast, the author of this article develops judgment dissociation theory (JDT), which predicts that these types of reasoning differ in function and can lead to divergent judgments. The actuality principle proposes that causal selections focus on antecedents that are sufficient to generate the actual outcome. The substitution principle proposes that ad hoc categorization plays a key role in counterfactual and covariational reasoning such that counterfactual selections focus on antecedents that would have been sufficient to prevent the outcome or something like it and covariational selections focus on antecedents that yield the largest increase in the probability of the outcome or something like it. The findings of 4 experiments support JDT but not the competing counterfactual and covariational accounts. If causation is the cement of the universe, as the philosopher David Hume (1740/1938) put it, then it is fair to say that causal knowledge is the cement that binds together each person’s representational universe. Causal reasoning—the process that generates this glue—confers many functional advantages. In virtually every sphere of human interest, our abilities to learn and categorize

Triune Ethics Theory (TET) is a psychological theory developed to meet three goals. First, it attempts to harvest critical findings from neurobiology, affective neuroscience, and cognitive science and to integrate them into moral psychology for the purpose of informing psychological research on the moral life of persons. In contrast to dominant theories that focus on top-down, deliberative reasoning (e.g., Kohlberg), TET is a bottom-up theory that focuses on motivational orientations which are sculpted by unconscious emotional systems that predispose one to react to and act on events in particular ways. Second, it seeks to explain differences in moral functioning through a person by context interaction. Individuals differ in early emotional experiences that influence personality formation and behavior in context, while at the same time situations can evoke particular reactions which vary with personality. Third, it suggests the initial conditions for optimal human moral development.

Abstract. This paper seeks to extend notions of monitoring in metareasoning to include symbolic and linguistic expressions of self for purposes of communication and learning. The essay is intended to present a synthesis in plain language that challenges the agent community interested in metareasoning to consider what it means for a system to understand itself in any meaningful way. The basic claim is that if an agent truly knows what it is doing and why, it should be able explain itself to others using natural language or some other interactive mechanism with humans. To perform self-explanation it must be able to understand itself, and for this to occur it must monitor its own metareasoning and have an episodic memory that forms the basis of self. A further challenge is to incorporate self-explanation into an evaluation function that complements criteria based solely on action performance. 1

The cognitive and neurosciences have made great strides in uncovering the nature of human psychobiology in recent years. Moral educators have yet to make much of their findings. The theories presented here capitalize on recent research that has implications for building moral personalities and cultivating morally adept citizens. The two theories presented in brief are the Integrative Ethical Education model, intended for educators of all levels, and Triune Ethics Theory, a more comprehensive theory of moral development that has implications for moral education. Approaches to education for moral character are typically divided into two opposing views which are rooted in different philosophical paradigms (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006; Narvaez, 2006). One philosophical paradigm represents particularist claims regarding virtue with a focus on the agent and the deliberate cultivation of virtues or excellences (MacIntyre, 1981). Of primary concern is the nature of a good life and the characteristics necessary to live a good life (e.g., Anscombe, 1958; Hursthouse, 1999; McDowell, 1997). The individual takes on the responsibility for discovering the virtues and values inherent in the self, and cultivates them with the support of the community (Urmson, 1988). Moreover, nearly everything in a life has moral meaning, from friend selection to leisure activities. Traditional character education emerges from

Subtyping as a knowledge preservation

For the past several years my colleagues and I, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning, have been developing a model for character education in the middle grades that we call “Community Voices and Character Education. ” 1 Our work has been guided by four considerations. First, we adopt a skills-based understanding of moral character. This is not a new idea. Plato, for example, in The Republic, repeatedly draws an analogy between the training and practices of the just person and the training and practices of skilled artisans and professionals. A just person is one who has particular, highly-cultivated skills that have been developed through training and practice. 2 Second, like Plato, we believe that character development is a matter of nurturing skills towards high levels of expertise. Our work is guided by recent advances in cognitive science regarding the nature of expertise and its development. Third, the pedagogy driving our model holds several educational advantages. Here I mention just three. (1) Our model assumes an active cognitive approach to learning, which is

This paper concentrates on pairing opinion analysis with argument extraction in order to identify why opinions about a certain feature are positive or negative. The objective is to have a better grasp at the underlying elements that support the analysis. In a second stage, given customer recommendations, the goal is to identify the preferences or priorities of customers, e.g. fares over welcome attitude. This induces customers value systems. Finally, we give elements of the implementation based on the <TextCoop> platform, dedicated to discourse analysis. 1