Showing papers on "Rationality published in 2020"

Resource-rational analysis: Understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources.

Abstract: Modeling human cognition is challenging because there are infinitely many mechanisms that can generate any given observation. Some researchers address this by constraining the hypothesis space through assumptions about what the human mind can and cannot do, while others constrain it through principles of rationality and adaptation. Recent work in economics, psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics has begun to integrate both approaches by augmenting rational models with cognitive constraints, incorporating rational principles into cognitive architectures, and applying optimality principles to understanding neural representations. We identify the rational use of limited resources as a unifying principle underlying these diverse approaches, expressing it in a new cognitive modeling paradigm called resource-rational analysis. The integration of rational principles with realistic cognitive constraints makes resource-rational analysis a promising framework for reverse-engineering cognitive mechanisms and representations. It has already shed new light on the debate about human rationality and can be leveraged to revisit classic questions of cognitive psychology within a principled computational framework. We demonstrate that resource-rational models can reconcile the mind's most impressive cognitive skills with people's ostensive irrationality. Resource-rational analysis also provides a new way to connect psychological theory more deeply with artificial intelligence, economics, neuroscience, and linguistics.

Norms of Deliberation: An Inductive study

Abstract: Writers on the practice of deliberation usually take their cues about what deliberation ought to be from the theoretical literature, sometimes adding elements from their own experience. Until recently, that theoretical literature deductively derived its ideal conception of deliberation from the abstract principles of rationality, liberty, and equality. Then critics of the early stream of theorizing drew from experience and past work on the position of minorities and oppressed groups to fault the early theorists for proposing ideals that, when put into practice, were likely to exclude or marginalize members of disadvantaged groups. More recently, in response to these critiques, contemporary deliberative theorists have broadened and reframed some of these principles. Deliberative theory, however, remains relatively unleavened by the direct experience of deliberation practitioners. To address this problem, we have adopted the explicitly inductive method of mining the observations of facilitators of small-group deliberation on public issues for explicit and implicit deliberative norms. The results differ in several ways from the results of theory derived from abstract principles or the generalized experiences of marginalized groups.

Ethics of Belief

Abstract: The broad question asked under the heading “Ethics of Belief” is: What ought one believe? An ethics of belief attempts to uncover the norms that guide belief formation and maintenance The dominant view among contemporary philosophers is that evidential norms do; I should always follow my evidence and only believe when the evidence is sufficient to support my belief This view is called “evidentialism,” although, as we shall see, this term gets applied to a number of views that can be distinguished from one another Evidentialists often cite David Hume (1999: 110) as their historic exemplar who said “a wise man … proportions his beliefs to the evidence” and thus argued against the reasonableness of believing in miracles (see Hume, David; Wisdom) Those who argue that there can be good practical reasons for believing, independent of one's evidence, can turn for inspiration to Blaise Pascal (1966: 124), who argued that the best reason to form a belief in God was a practical one, namely the possibility of avoiding eternal suffering (see Reasons; Reasons for Action, Morality and; Faith) Keywords: ethics; James, William; philosophy; Williams, Bernard; duty and obligation; knowledge; rationality; responsibility

Enkrasia or evidentialism? Learning to love mismatch

Abstract: I formulate a resilient paradox about epistemic rationality, discuss and reject various solutions, and sketch a way out. The paradox exemplifies a tension between a wide range of views of epistemic justification, on the one hand, and enkratic requirements on rationality, on the other. According to the enkratic requirements, certain mismatched doxastic states are irrational, such as believing p, while believing that it is irrational for one to believe p. I focus on an evidentialist view of justification on which a doxastic state regarding a proposition p is epistemically rational or justified just in case it tracks the degree to which one’s evidence supports p. If it is possible to have certain kinds of misleading evidence (as I argue it is), then evidentialism and the enkratic requirements come into conflict. Yet, both have been defended as platitudinous. After discussing and rejecting three solutions, I sketch an account that rejects the enkratic requirements, while nevertheless explaining our sense that epistemic akrasia is a distinct kind of epistemic failure. Central to the account is distinguishing between two evaluative perspectives, one having to do with the relevant kind of success (proportioning one’s doxastic states to the evidence), the other having to do with manifesting good dispositions. The problem with akratic subjects, I argue, is that they manifest dispositions to fail to correctly respond to a special class of conclusive and conspicuous reasons.

“Respeta mi idioma”: Latinx Youth Enacting Affective Agency

Abstract: Although hegemonic approaches to education privilege rationality as the sole legitimate form of knowledge production and consumption, research on emotion in socially transformative learning demonst...

Merespon Nalar Kebijakan Negara Dalam Menangani Pandemi COVID-19 Di Indonesia

Abstract: This paper departs from anxiety about the spread of the Covid 19 virus in Indonesia which is increasing significantly. The government as the main actor in policy making is required to produce policies that are able to reduce and solve covid 19 problems in Indonesia, including the impacts. But the policy will have no meaning if it does not get a response from the recipient of the policy. Therefore this paper is intended to track how the public responds to the reasoning of state policies in dealing with the Covid 19 virus in Indonesia. Through the literature study method, this paper is presented based on the results of readings in journals, books, mass media news to obtain comprehensive results. The rational choice approach to policy making is used as a knife for analysis to sharpen arguments. The results of this paper conclude that the policies taken by the government show rational reasoning. This logical logic of health emergencies can be accepted rationally by the community. However, there was a different response by some people, especially the middle to lower classes. This is caused by social vulnerability caused by limited resources so that it is "forced" to break through the reasoning of the country's rationality in the policy of handling the co-epidemic pandemic19 in Indonesia. The key to its solution is the country's ability to guarantee the economic security of every family. So that the rationality of the state and society will be the same in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic

Substituting Human Decision-Making with Machine Learning: Implications for Organizational Learning

Abstract: The richness of organizational learning relies on the ability of humans to develop diverse patterns of action by actively engaging with their environments and applying substantive rationality. The ...

Data-Driven Personas for Enhanced User Understanding: Combining Empathy with Rationality for Better Insights to Analytics

Abstract: Abstract Persona is a common human-computer interaction technique for increasing stakeholders’ understanding of audiences, customers, or users. Applied in many domains, such as e-commerce, health, marketing, software development, and system design, personas have remained relatively unchanged for several decades. However, with the increasing popularity of digital user data and data science algorithms, there are new opportunities to progressively shift personas from general representations of user segments to precise interactive tools for decision-making. In this vision, the persona profile functions as an interface to a fully functional analytics system. With this research, we conceptually investigate how data-driven personas can be leveraged as analytics tools for understanding users. We present a conceptual framework consisting of (a) persona benefits, (b) analytics benefits, and (c) decision-making outcomes. We apply this framework for an analysis of digital marketing use cases to demonstrate how data-driven personas can be leveraged in practical situations. We then present a functional overview of an actual data-driven persona system that relies on the concept of data aggregation in which the fundamental question defines the unit of analysis for decision-making. The system provides several functionalities for stakeholders within organizations to address this question.

Aesthetic Rationality: Notes on an Affinity between Newman and Scotus

Abstract: Despite Newman’s negligible direct familiarity with the works and thought of John Duns Scotus, there has been recent discussion of affinities between the two along a range of philosophical approaches and sensibilities. These notes introduce the thesis that both Scotus and Newman share a disposition to appeal to aesthetic rationality when it comes to asserting certain basic truths critical to Christian understanding. Recent Scotus studies have demonstrated the deep and pervasive presence of the aesthetic dimension in Duns Scotus’s thought. In the latter half of this paper I argue for the importance of aesthetic rationality in understanding Newman’s illative sense, which is perhaps his most important contribution to philosophical thought.

Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge

Abstract: Originally published in 1979, this book shows that a recognition of the rationality of moral judgment and moral action in no way involves us in diminishing our respect for liberty, authenticity, sincerity or integrity. It maintains that the resolution of these issues lies in recognising that the necessary involvement of the emotions in moral judgments and moral choices need not give rise to any hesitation or reluctance to treat moral questions as needing and permitting the use of the resources of human understanding.

The Two Blades of Occam's Razor in Economics: Logical and Heuristic

Abstract: This paper is part of the general debate about the need to rethink economics as a human discipline using a heuristic to describe its object, about the need to explicitly reject the positivistic approach in neoclassical economics, and about the urgency to adopt a different methodology, grounded on a realistic set of initial assumptions able to cope with the complexity of the decision making process. The aim of this paper is to show the use of Occam's razor in the economic debate around realism in economic modelling. Occam's razor can be intended as a principle of logic that emphasises simplicity, or as a heuristic tool that emphasises parsimony. Neoclassical economists, such as Samuelson, have explicitly used Occam's razor as a logical principle to highlight the strict logic and simplicity of neoclassical economics; neoclassical models, however, are based on unrealistic assumptions. Some approaches of heterodox economics, au contraire, have used Occam's razor as a powerful heuristic tool to emphasise parsimony, building up models grounded on realistic initial assumptions and capable of embedding complexity into the general explanation of economic behaviour, as in Simon's bounded rationality (1955; 1957) and Hayek's notion of human rationality (1948; 1952; 1974) and cultural and social evolution (1967; 1978).

Terrorist Decision Making in the Context of Risk, Attack Planning, and Attack Commission

Abstract: Terrorists from a wide array of ideological influences and organizational structures consider security and risk on a continuous and rational basis. The rationality of terrorism has been long noted of course but studies tended to focus on organizational reasoning behind the strategic turn toward violence. A more recent shift within the literature has examined rational behaviors that underpin the actual tactical commission of a terrorist offense. This article is interested in answering the following questions: What does the cost–benefit decision look like on a single operation? What does the planning process look like? How do terrorists choose between discrete targets? What emotions are felt during the planning and operational phases? What environmental cues are utilized in the decision-making process? Fortunately, much insight is available from the wider criminological literature where studies often provide offender-oriented accounts of the crime commission process. We hypothesize similar factors t...

Digitizing Sociology: Continuity and Change in the Internet Era:

Abstract: This article outlines and contextualizes the development of digital sociology as an introduction to this e-special issue, charting the development of the field through the pages of the journal, Sociology. In doing so, the article sketches key contours of this rich and varied terrain, accenting how technological innovation has permeated the domains of politics, culture and society. Of central concern has been the intellectual origins of ‘digital sociology’. While first coined in 2009, the article highlights a longer history, noting the continued resonance of modernity’s currents of categorization, ordering and rationality while recognizing the crucial shifts brought by digitally mediated life. The article then discusses landmark articles contributing to the development of digital sociology, beginning with interventions seeking to theorize digital society. We then turn to articles focusing on methodological questions before addressing the digital turn in selected areas of enduring sociological concern including: work and organizations; inequality; migration; activism; communities; emotions; and everyday life. The article concludes with a series of observations regarding potential futures of digital sociological analyses.

Social policy, state legitimacy and strategic actors:governmentality and counter-conduct inauthoritarian regime

Abstract: Far from acting defensively to preserve the social relations and red ideologies that originally gave it power, the Chinese Communist Party is leading a social and economic transformation that could be expected to lead to direct challenges to its authority. The surprising degree of change in the Chinese socio-economic transformation and the fact that this transformation has been going on for forty years now and has not yet resulted in fundamental challenges subverting its rule have inspired my study. The overarching theoretical enquiry in my dissertation resonates with one of the most important theoretical questions in political sociology: how does the state maintain compliance from the governed in periods of rapid social and economic transformation, and how does the logic of its governmentality change along with its priorities? My work is built on the Weberian and Gramscian tradition of understanding state rule and highlights the individual’s rationale of “believing” and “consent”, but also takes account of the Foucaudian “governmentality” the state uses to maintain its rule and investigates the underlined rationality. Empirically, I take advantage of the pension changes among China’s social welfare reforms, decipher a two-way story of statecraft in authoritarian regimes and explore whether there may be room for cognitional counter-conduct from the public. My work demonstrates that the Chinese state works through benefit allocation, propaganda, experimentation with policy and many other approaches, in order to shape public expectations and justify its rule. However, the state’s well-designed statecraft needs to enable individuals to make sense of their experience and must resonate with their “common sense”. Individuals can update their knowledge from personal interest, information from government policies, signals from current society (their peers) to decide whether to stay loyal or choose non-compliance. In a situation when active counter-conduct such as resistance is not possible, individuals may choose cognitional rebellion and falsify their public compliance.

No escape from the technosystem

Abstract: The main purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth review of Andrew Feenberg’s Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). To this end, the anal...

Team Reasoning and the Rational Choice of Payoff-Dominant Outcomes in Games

Abstract: Standard game theory cannot explain the selection of payoff-dominant outcomes that are best for all players in common-interest games. Theories of team reasoning can explain why such mutualistic cooperation is rational. They propose that teams can be agents and that individuals in teams can adopt a distinctive mode of reasoning that enables them to do their part in achieving Pareto-dominant outcomes. We show that it can be rational to play payoff-dominant outcomes, given that an agent group identifies. We compare team reasoning to other theories that have been proposed to explain how people can achieve payoff-dominant outcomes, especially with respect to rationality. Some authors have hoped that it would be possible to develop an argument that it is rational to group identify. We identify some large—probably insuperable—problems with this project and sketch some more promising approaches, whereby the normativity of group identification rests on morality.

Institutions and economic change: some notes on self-organization, power and learning in human organizations

Abstract: This paper provides a compact overview of the interpretations of the “primitive entities” constituting the social fabric of economic systems according to different social science traditions. In our view, it is possible to reconstruct two meta-narratives on the origins of the theoretical primitives which are at the roots of different social sciences approaches. The first narrative argues that ‘once upon a time’ there were individuals with well-structured and coherent preferences and with adequate cognitive algorithms which allowed them to take systematically rationally consistent decisions. At the beginning of history, they met and, conditional on the technologies available, undertook mutually beneficial exchanges or, when this was not possible due to technological non-convexities, trading difficulties or problems of contract enforcement, built organizations. In the alternative tale, at the beginning of history, there were immediately factors of socialization like families and social norms, which shaped desires, representations and, possibly, cognitive abilities of the agents. In this perspective, non-exchange mechanisms of interactions (authority, violence and persuasion) which establish the adaptation of agents to specific social roles appear in the explanation from the start. Here ‘institutions’ are the primitives, while ‘preferences’ and the very idea of ‘rationality’ are derived entities. Which of the two meta-narrative is chosen bears far-reaching implications for the interpretation of institutions and organizations and their transformations.

The Realist Rationality of Evidence-Based Management

Abstract: (1) Evidence-Based Management (EBM) pursues a pragmatic form of rationality I will call realist rationality. Realist rationality is informed by the science regarding the limits of human cognitive processes and biases inherent in organizational roles, which limit decision frames and attention to relevant information. Realist rationality recognizes the value of decision aids and routines in support ofmoremindful decisionmaking. At the same time, realist rationality recognizes the inherent uncertainty in human understanding and the tentative nature of knowledge. (2) EBMcomprises a family of principles, processes, and decision practices intended to enhance decision quality under realist conditions. It does so through formal education, skills training, adaptive practices, and decision aids that support effective use ofmultiple sources of evidence vetted for quality in organizational decisions. (3) The realist rationality EBM reflects is part of a liberation movement seeking to overcome the limits of selfor local interests and the preferences of the powerful to improve decision quality and broaden howdecisions are framed. It does so throughuse of evidence-based decision processes and supports, in line with the concerns and interests of a decision’s diverse stakeholders. Evidence-based management is organizational not managerialist. It focuses on organization-related decisions and the practitioners who contribute to them—from executives and entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants, workers and volunteers, to labor organizers and civil servants. With its organizational focus, EBM is sector-neutral, including forprofit, non-governmental and governmental organizations (cf., Center for Evidence-Based Management membership). To begin, evidence-based management is the conscientious use of multiple sources of evidence in organizational decisions (Barends & Rousseau, 2018). Part of the wider movement toward evidence-based practice in medicine and public policy, EBM is a family of approaches to organizational decisions that make use of four sources of evidence: scientific findings (particularly cumulative bodies of research), organizational information (such as data and contextual factors), practitioner judgment (including experiencebased knowledge), and stakeholder interests and concerns (such as effects on and perspectives of employees, clients, and constituents representing the broader environment). The evidence-based practice movement began as a response to theunderutilization of scientific evidence in medicine, particularly in medical school education, and its concomitant overreliance on tradition and authority. It has broadened to recognize the importance of other forms of evidence (see interview with Amanda Burls and Gordon Guyatt, the latter who coined the term “Evidencebased Medicine,” Barends & Briner, 2014). As is the case of the broader evidence-based practice movement, EBM is as much a teaching innovation as it is a source of new organizational practices and ways of making decisions (Rousseau &McCarthy, 2007). EBM is predicated on the idea that rational or goal-appropriate action is the aim of management education and the practitioners we educate. Scientific evidence, however, leads us to question the quality of decision making in organizations based on conventional approaches to rationality (e.g., the “rational choice” model; Herfeld, 2012). In management learningandeducation,EBMoffersanalternativeconceptof rationality I call “realist rationality.”

The Role of Universities in a Sustainable Society. Why Value-Free Research is Neither Possible nor Desirable

Abstract: The current climate crisis confronts us with a deep discrepancy between knowledge and action. Therefore, this article is looking for a readjustment of the relationship between science and society. The positivist self-understanding of science and its fragmented organizational form lead to a marginalization of ethical questions. Instead, sustainability calls for a re-examination of the preconditions and embedding contexts of supposedly value-free research. Faced with the increasing complexity of the modern world, ethics must spell out a new “grammar of responsibility” that addresses the prevalent “declamatory overload of responsibility”. Ethicists can fulfil this role by uncovering and regulating conflicting goals and dilemmas. Instead of playing the role of “marginal echo chambers”, universities ought to assume their social responsibility as structural policy actors. This article suggests a methodology of responsible research as a specific ethical contribution to the model of “transformative” and “catalytic” science for a “post-normal age”. True to their founding mission, academia should herald a “New Enlightenment” that is more self-reflexive regarding its own practical and ethical preconditions, foundations, and consequences. This article presents a possible practical method for fostering the dialogue between the natural sciences and the humanities and to link research, education, practice, and social communication in new ways. It is concluded that a foundation of a whole-rationality approach with a multidimensional understanding of wisdom and, respectively, rationality and sagacity is necessary for sustainable universities.

Responsibility, rationality, and acceptance: How future users of autonomous driving are constructed in stakeholders’ sociotechnical imaginaries:

Abstract: Although autonomous driving is expected to provide a solution for various mobility-related issues, ideas on how the technology will actually unfold are vague. Nevertheless, stakeholders in the field hold expectations about the technology and the future users. With very few exceptions, so far research does not focus on these expectations as social constructions of individuals and publics. In addition, these perceptions play only a minor role in the technology-centered debate. Thus, to bring these perceptions to light and to analyze their implications, we draw on the sociotechnical imaginaries approach to reconstruct stakeholders' views of future users and publics. We perform a qualitative content analysis and show that imaginaries unfold along the themes of responsibility for the process of driving, rationality in decision-making, and acceptance for emerging technologies. We discuss how the themes relate to each other, what role science plays, and what implications follow from the respective stakeholders' views.

Rationality and Intuition

Abstract: Cappon, who recommends intuition as an important means to solve problems, contrasts those who use intuition with those who \"think logically, rationally, and deductively to prove how things work or should be done,'' and also sets intuition in contrast to logic, intelligence, and scientific technologies. This type of view is extremely common in the literature. This is but one example, though a particularly striking one. If the outcomes attributed to intuition are deemed educationally valuable, then this opposition between rationality and intuition could have important educational implications. In this paper, I argue that this opposition is problematic, resting on a false dichotomy between reasoning and creative thinking, a misunderstanding of skills and rules, an excessively narrow concept of rationality, and a false opposition between reason and emotion. I suggest that intuition, in any sense which is educationally relevant, involves both rational processes which have been mastered and assimilated and the emotional cues which accompany these processes.

Suspension of Judgment, Rationality’s Competition, and the Reach of the Epistemic

Abstract: This paper is about the boundaries of epistemic normativity. I argue we can understand these better by thinking about which mental states are competitor’s in rationality’s competition. I argue that belief, disbelief, and two kinds of suspension of judgment are competitors. I show that there are non-evidential reasons for suspension of judgment. One upshot is an independent motivation for a certain sort of pragmatist view of epistemic rationality.

Who Shapes the Politics of Expertise? Co‐Production and Authoritative Knowledge in Thailand's Political Forests

Abstract: Expert environmental knowledge has often been described as a governmental rationality that reduces political debate and facilitates state control. In this paper, I argue instead that this line of reasoning simplifies how knowledge gains political authority, especially when expertise is shared and left unchallenged by diverse actors, including those in conflict with each other. Using the framework of co-production from Science and Technology Studies (STS), I apply this argument to conflicts over the supposed watershed functions of forests in Thailand, where simplified narratives about the impacts of land use on water supply are used as justifications for territorialisation and restrictions on forest land. In particular, I focus on local resistance to the proposed Kaeng Sua Ten dam in northern Thailand in order to demonstrate how protestors have deliberately reproduced formal expertise to empower themselves, but by so doing also reinforcing simplified visions of watershed science and community culture. I argue that exposing the co-production of authoritative knowledge and visions of social order offer greater opportunities for understanding the role of expertise as a political force than analysing competing assemblages based on oppositions of state-led expert knowledge and traditional local practices.

The role of worldviews in the governance of sustainable mobility.

Abstract: Sustainable development aims for a viable interaction between human and physical nature. However, how do we perceive the social and natural world, rationalize our behavior, and modify our ways of life? Here, we apply the idea of worldviews to cognition and rationality in transport since a transition to sustainable mobility is crucial in dealing with global climate change. We utilize Cultural Theory and the British Social Attitudes survey (N = 1,120) to study how three worldviews—egalitarianism, hierarchy, and individualism—relate to people’s attitudes to sustainable mobility. First, we use factor analysis to extract the three worldviews or ways of life in Great Britain. Second, we construct hypotheses concerning the correlations between the worldviews and social attitudes to sustainable mobility. Our statistical analysis of 11 mobility issues in the survey confirms our hypotheses, elucidating the cultural cognition or rationality that underlies people’s transport decision-making. Egalitarianism favors demand control, environmental friendliness, and action driven by inner conviction; hierarchy privileges conformity, order, and security; and individualism embraces freedom, speed, and external incentives. The findings show that the worldviews have a systematic and comprehensive impact on how people assess sustainable mobility debates. Moreover, we perform regression analysis to investigate how these cultural styles are associated with British people’s sociodemographics and political party identification, which can help identify the characteristics of stakeholders in sustainability planning and engagement. We conclude that the worldviews form the bedrock of individual decisions on sustainable mobility and have a wider significance for holistic sustainability governance.

Folk standards of sound judgment: Rationality Versus Reasonableness.

Abstract: Normative theories of judgment either focus on rationality (decontextualized preference maximization) or reasonableness (pragmatic balance of preferences and socially conscious norms). Despite centuries of work on these concepts, a critical question appears overlooked: How do people's intuitions and behavior align with the concepts of rationality from game theory and reasonableness from legal scholarship? We show that laypeople view rationality as abstract and preference maximizing, simultaneously viewing reasonableness as sensitive to social context, as evidenced in spontaneous descriptions, social perceptions, and linguistic analyses of cultural products (news, soap operas, legal opinions, and Google books). Further, experiments among North Americans and Pakistani bankers, street merchants, and samples engaging in exchange (versus market) economy show that rationality and reasonableness lead people to different conclusions about what constitutes good judgment in Dictator Games, Commons Dilemma, and Prisoner's Dilemma: Lay rationality is reductionist and instrumental, whereas reasonableness integrates preferences with particulars and moral concerns.

CARE: Commonsense-Aware Emotional Response Generation with Latent Concepts

Abstract: Rationality and emotion are two fundamental elements of humans. Endowing agents with rationality and emotion has been one of the major milestones in AI. However, in the field of conversational AI, most existing models only specialize in one aspect and neglect the other, which often leads to dull or unrelated responses. In this paper, we hypothesize that combining rationality and emotion into conversational agents can improve response quality. To test the hypothesis, we focus on one fundamental aspect of rationality, i.e., commonsense, and propose CARE, a novel model for commonsense-aware emotional response generation. Specifically, we first propose a framework to learn and construct commonsense-aware emotional latent concepts of the response given an input message and a desired emotion. We then propose three methods to collaboratively incorporate the latent concepts into response generation. Experimental results on two large-scale datasets support our hypothesis and show that our model can produce more accurate and commonsense-aware emotional responses and achieve better human ratings than state-of-the-art models that only specialize in one aspect.