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Recently it has been proposed that humans possess an innate, domain-specific moral faculty, and that this faculty might be fruitfully understood by drawing a close analogy with nativist theories in linguistics. This Linguistic Analogy (LA) hypothesizes that humans share a universal moral grammar. In this paper I argue that this conception is deeply flawed. After profiling a recent and appealing account of universal moral grammar, I suggest that recent empirical findings reveal a significant flaw, which takes the form of a dilemma: either there is something wrong with the moral grammar model because we do not actually possess the innate contents (rules, principles, and concepts) it says we have, or the moral grammar model is simply the wrong model of moral cognition. In light of this dilemma, I conclude we ought to be skeptical that the Linguistic Analogy can adequately serve as a general account of moral cognition.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-160). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This manuscript-based thesis explores the relationship between learning and development. The first manuscript reviews the important empirical regularities identified in human discrimination shift learning, including a qualitative age-related change in performance observed in childhood. Leading theoretical accounts of the empirical data are discussed, suggesting that none provides a comprehensive interpretation. The manuscript presents the novel, spontaneous overtraining interpretation. It hypothesizes that age-related changes in human shift learning stem from differences in amount of processing. Successful neural network simulations of the reversal and nonreversal shift tasks and of the optional shift task are reported as tests of the hypothesis. / The second manuscript reports simulations of additional discrimination shift tasks. These are the intradimensional and extradimensional shift tasks, in which novel stimuli are introduced in the relearning phase. Preschoolers and adults exhibit the same pattern of behavior in this variant of shift learning. Simulation results show that the spontaneous overtraining hypothesis captures this effect. / The third chapter reports an empirical validation of the shift learning model. If the shift learning performance of adults is a consequence of more extensive processing, it follows that adults in whom such processing is prevented should perform as preschoolers. Sixty adults took part in a shift learning experiment with a Brown-Peterson task as a cognitive load. Results mirror those observed with preschoolers. As a control, 40 adults performed the shift learning experiment without the cognitive load. These results replicate the typical adult performance. Overall, these experiments lend additional support to the model developed in Manuscript 1. / The final manuscript is a theoretical discussion of the relationship between learning and development. Two classes of neural networks are discussed, and their underlying assumptions about learning and development are highlighted. These are static architecture and generative architecture networks. It is argued that only generative algorithms, such as used in the shift learning simulations, qualify as developmental models. Both classes of networks are further contrasted with respect to innateness. The comparison suggests that only generative networks can acquire genuinely new representations. The manuscript proposes a novel formulation of Piaget's constructivism from the generative neural network perspective.

Versions of naturalized epistemology that overlook or reject apriority ignore innate belief-forming processes that provide much of the grounding for epistemic warrant. A rigorous analysis reveals that non-experiential ways of viewing apriority, such as innateness, establish the domain for a plausible naturalistic theory of a priori warrant. A moderate version of naturalistic epistemology that embraces the non-experiential feature of apriority and motivates future cognitive scientific research is the preferred account.

The aim of this thesis is to defend a reading of Descartes' theory of sensory perception in which, against a widespread interpretation, the mind is not a passive receiver of inputs from the environment, but an active decoder of neural information that contributes to the representational content of ideas. I call this the 'mental activity thesis' and, in the overall picture, I identify it as one of the philosophical implications of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. Within Descartes' dualism, to offer a theory of sensory perception amounts to describing the interplay between the natural world, the brain, and the mind. Given his mechanistic, micro-corpuscular conception of matter, Descartes developed detailed physiological descriptions of the interaction between external objects and the brain. He envisaged it as an isomorphic relation in which the characteristics of objects are transmitted through the nerves to the brain as patterns of geometrically reduced properties. This process is often read as culminating with the mind being passively affected by a corporeal isomorph. Descartes' doctrine becomes elusive in its mental phase, but the passivity reading, so I contend, remains inadequate. I argue for the mental activity thesis through four claims. First, I subscribe the known view that Descartes is concerned about a version of the mind-body problem that is not equivalent to the problem of substance interaction. It is rather a problem of dissimilarity between mental representations and mechanistic explanations. The question is how the qualitative character of sensory experiences can arise from the quantitative notions of physical science. As a way of emphasising the weight that the problem of dissimilarity has for Descartes' philosophical decisions, I show that it motivates a metaphysically interesting distinction between types of causes for the case of brain-mind interaction. Second, I defend the position that, despite not holding a perfectly unambiguous doctrine, Descartes' introduction of natural signs is the closest that he got to formulating a full-fledged theory of sensory perception. The appeal to natural signs has been normally deemed as metaphorical in the literature. I argue that, on the contrary, it is possible to reconstruct a causal story for brain-mind interaction along the lines of a semantic model based on Descartes' identification of neural events with natural signs. A causal-semantic model emerges as a charitable, plausible reading that reveals the mind as an active interpreter. Third, in light of the mental activity thesis, I read Descartes' late appeal to the innateness of all ideas (notably in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet) as a strategy to account for a type of representational content needed for sensory ideas that, while produced by the mind, is different from that of his paradigmatic innate ideas. I assist Descartes in exploring how the category of innateness captures mental activity within a causal-semantic theory. Fourth, in the course of this argumentation, and for further support, I address the role of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities in Descartes' theory. I tackle a pervasive objection stemming from his alleged association of the perception of primary qualities with the intellect. By reassessing Descartes' views on mental activity, this interpretation aims at a lucid description of sensory perception that goes beyond the rigid rationalism that is often credited to him.

Historically there has been an ongoing debate whether leadership is innate behaviour, a trait or a skill. I believe leadership is both a skill and a behaviour that exhibits that skill (Doh 2003). ‘This dual definition generated an additional disagreement over whether leadership can be taught’ (Doh 2003, p. 54). I have had conversations with professors, alumni and leaders who have experience with leadership (broadly defined) and more specifically with leadership programmes. I have asked the experts how they would define leadership; if leaders are born; how the profile of a successful leader looks like; and how we should develop leaders. This study indicates that leadership can be enhanced with the development of (1) explicit knowledge (2) tacit knowledge (3) emotional intelligence (4) and ethical leadership.

In the Middle East and in many majority Muslim nations, homosexuality, including homosexual acts, identities, desires, and discussions of those, is considered taboo. Utilizing a feminist theoretical orientation, this project examined the ways in which same-sex desiring women in Amman, Jordan view the concept of sexually desiring and its relationship to identities. It also examined the pressures placed on them to abide by and navigate familial and religious expectations that conflict with their sexuality. This project drew upon 15 interviews from Muslim and Christian women in Amman using semi-structured and unstructured interviews and participant observation. After analysis, it was concluded that the majority of informants believe in innate sexual desires and sexuality and that all people sexually desire in similar ways. It was also concluded that informants face more pressure from family than from religion, and therefore, find it easier to balance religious obligations than familial obligations with their sexuality.

Text in English / This research was aimed at giving a voice to three women, who are constructed as having had a traumatic event recalled from their autobiographical memory. To achieve this objective an epistemological framework of social constructionism was used to investigate autobiographical memory recall of trauma. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with participants who constructed themselves as having had a traumatic event. A case study approach was used to gain access to the information and to compare themes. The research explored the way in which dissociation, voluntary thought suppression, minimisation and outright denial enabled the three participants to alter unbearable memories through the use of recurring themes. To interpret these stories the content of the themes was analysed using thematic content analysis. The participants represented different cultures, languages and religions. In sharing their symptoms this did not necessarily mean they attached the same meaning to a specific theme, as individual meaning-making corresponded to the individual‟s background and history and their perception of the trauma. The stories related by the three participants revealed a shattered worldview that brought them into opposition with community norms and standards, which the narrators experienced as silencing and judgemental. In this regard the researcher‟s aim was to generate information from the participants themselves. This inquiry into the personal trauma stories and meanings suited a qualitative research approach, a form of methodology that allowed personal insight into the meanings the three participants attributed to their trauma and the autobiographical recall of trauma. At the same time it allowed a co-constructed reality to take shape between the researcher‟s reality and the participant‟s reality, always acknowledging the importance of their being the expert of their own individual trauma memory. This is in contrast to a quantitative approach which focuses on numbers to quantify the results; a qualitative approach on the other hand is a personal, rich information-gathering tool that takes into account the emotions and meaning-making of each individual story without any intention to generalise the information gathered to a larger population It is hoped that through this research there is a realisation that although trauma victims share symptoms, the meaning-making of the individual attached to this trauma is influenced by their society and history within their respective environments. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

This research was aimed at giving a voice to three women, who are constructed as having had a traumatic event recalled from their autobiographical memory. To achieve this objective an epistemological framework of social constructionism was used to investigate autobiographical memory recall of trauma. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with participants who constructed themselves as having had a traumatic event. A case study approach was used to gain access to the information and to compare themes. The research explored the way in which dissociation, voluntary thought suppression, minimisation and outright denial enabled the three participants to alter unbearable memories through the use of recurring themes. To interpret these stories the content of the themes was analysed using thematic content analysis. The participants represented different cultures, languages and religions. In sharing their symptoms this did not necessarily mean they attached the same meaning to a specific theme, as individual meaning-making corresponded to the individual‟s background and history and their perception of the trauma. The stories related by the three participants revealed a shattered worldview that brought them into opposition with community norms and standards, which the narrators experienced as silencing and judgemental. In this regard the researcher‟s aim was to generate information from the participants themselves. This inquiry into the personal trauma stories and meanings suited a qualitative research approach, a form of methodology that allowed personal insight into the meanings the three participants attributed to their trauma and the autobiographical recall of trauma. At the same time it allowed a co-constructed reality to take shape between the researcher‟s reality and the participant‟s reality, always acknowledging the importance of their being the expert of their own individual trauma memory. This is in contrast to a quantitative approach which focuses on numbers to quantify the results; a qualitative approach on the other hand is a personal, rich information-gathering tool that takes into account the emotions and meaning-making of each individual story without any intention to generalise the information gathered to a larger population It is hoped that through this research there is a realisation that although trauma victims share symptoms, the meaning-making of the individual attached to this trauma is influenced by their society and history within their respective environments. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)