Hagop Sarkissian--The City University of New York, Baruch College

Publications

"Confucius and the Effortless Life of Virtue"
History of Philosophy Quarterly 27.1:1-16 (forthcoming 2010)

Natural talent and diligent practice regularly lead to effortless virtuosity in many fields, such as music and athletics. Can the same be true of morality? Confucius’s wonderfully terse autobiography in the Analects suggests that, given the right starting materials and an appropriate curriculum of study, a program of moral self-cultivation can indeed lead to effortless moral virtuosity. But can we make sense of this claim from a contemporary perspective? This paper evaluates the plausibility of the moral ideal in the Analects using resources from contemporary moral psychology.

Critics of functionalist theories of the mind often rely on the intuition that
collectivities cannot be conscious in motivating their positions. In this paper we consider the merits of appealing to this intuition that there is nothing that it’s like to be a collectivity. We report empirical evidence demonstrating that collective mentality is not an affront to commonsense. We also report experimental evidence demonstrating that resistance to collective mentality is culturally specific rather than universally held. Finally, we provide evidence that the source of this intuitive resistance to collective mentality is at least partially a product of our Western cultural heritage. Thus, we argue that mere appeal to the intuitive implausibility of collective consciousness does not offer any genuine insight into the nature of mentality in general, nor the nature of consciousness in particular.

Recent experimental research has revealed surprising patterns in people's intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. One limitation of this research, however, is that it has been conducted exclusively on people from Western cultures. The present paper extends previous research by presenting a cross-cultural study examining intuitions about free will in subjects from the United States, Hong Kong, India and Colombia. The results revealed a striking degree of cross-cultural convergence. In all four cultural groups, the majority of participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic and (b) moral responsibility is not compatible with determinism.

Recently, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe has shown that the folk are more inclined to describe side effects as intentional actions when they bring about bad results. Edouard Machery has offered an intriguing new explanation of Knobe’s work—the 'trade-off hypothesis'—which denies that moral considerations explain folk applications of the concept of intentional action. We critique Machery's hypothesis and offer empirical evidence against it. We also evaluate the current state of the debate concerning the concept of intentionality, and argue that, given the number of variables at play, any parsimonious account of the relevant data is implausible.

Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people’s judgments as to whether or not an action was performed intentionally are sensitive to moral considerations. In this paper, we outline these results and evaluate two accounts which purport to explain them. We then describe a recent experiment that allegedly vindicates one of these accounts and present our own findings to show that it fails to do so. Finally, we present additional data suggesting no such vindication could be in the offing and that, in fact, both accounts fail to explain the initial, puzzling results they were purported to explain.

“Naturalizing ethics.” w/ Flanagan, O. and Wong, D.
In Moral Psychology, Vol. 1: The Evolution of Morality. Edited by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Cambridge: MIT Press (2007)

In this paper we provide (i) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized (ii) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (iii) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies – Hume and Moore’s – that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (iv) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. The latter substantive view constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism.

“What is the nature of morality? A response to Casebeer, Railton, and Ruse.” w/ Flanagan, O. and Wong, D.
In Moral Psychology, Vol. 1: The Evolution of Morality. Edited by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Cambridge: MIT Press (2007)

A response to comments by William Casebeer, Peter Railton, and Michael Ruse on the paper above ("Naturalizing Ethics").

Under Review

Moral philosophers of late have been examining the implications of experimental social psychology for ethics. The focus of attention has been on situationism—the thesis that we routinely underestimate the extent to which minor situational variables influence morally significant behavior. This has been cause for alarm in some quarters, where situationism is seen as a threat to prevailing lay and philosophical theories of character, personhood, and agency. In this paper, I outline the situationist literature and critique one of its upshots: the admonition to carefully select one’s situational contexts. Besides being limited in application, this strategy accentuates an untenable person/situation dichotomy. The deeper lesson of situationism lies in highlighting the interconnectedness of all social behavior—how we are inextricably involved in the actions of others, and how minor tweaks in our own behavior can lead to major payoffs in our moral lives. Thus, I argue that situationism is better seen as an opportunity for moral progress than a threat to individual autonomy.

The Primitivist (responsible for chapters 8-11 of the heterogenous Zhuangzi) has largely has been interpreted as just another exponent of the Laozi. This is a shame, because the Primitivist is an idiosyncratic thinker whose theories do not simply reiterate those found in the Laozi. In this essay, I argue that even though the Primitivist embraced the values of the Laozi (e.g. simplicity, harmony with nature, being rid of knowledge, etc.) he would have censured its prescriptions; he had no faith that order could be achieved through an emphasis on minimalism, or by advocating a change (or reversal) in values. Instead, after taking a long and somber look at the chaotic world, the Primitivist realized that the only logical course of action was to purge it—through violent action—of all the artificial constructs which left man helpless to lead a natural, instinctual, pre-reflective mode of existence. In other words, he seems to have membership in what must be a very exclusive group: he is a Daoist who thinks the world can only be bettered by doing something—indeed, doing a whole lot of unpleasant, nasty things. I thus situate the Primitivist within the trend toward authoritarianism that characterized the period in which he wrote (3rd century BCE).

In Preparation

"The Psychology of De: Experimental Explorations."

"Confucian Moral Psychology: Ancient Wisdom Meets Cognitive Science."