Collected Papers, Volume 2 Knowledge, Rationality, and Morality, 1978-2010

This volume collects the best and most influential essays on knowledge, rationality and morality that Stephen Stich has published in the last 40 years. All of the essays are concerned, in one way or another, with the ways in which findings and theories in the cognitive sciences can contribute to, and sometimes reshape traditional philosophical conversations and debates. A central theme in the essays on epistemology and rationality is the philosophical significance of empirical work on human reasoning done by researchers in the "heuristics and biases" tradition, and by their critics in evolutionary psychology. In the essays on morality, a wide range of empirical work is explored, including studies of the psychological foundations of norms, work on the moral / conventional distinction, and empirical attempts to determine whether humans ever act on altruistic motives. Stich was one of the pioneers in the experimental philosophy movement, and work in experimental philosophy plays a prominent role in many of these essays. The volume includes a new introductory essay that offers an overview of the papers and traces the history of how they emerged.

Introduction; 1. The Recombinant DNA Debate; 2. Justification and the Psychology of Human Reasoning, Stephen Stich and Richard E. Nisbett; 3. Could Man Be An Irrational Animal?; 4. Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity; 5. Moral Philosophy and Mental Representation; 6. Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism; 7. Rethinking Rationality: From Bleak Implications to Darwinian Modules, Richard Samuels, Stephen Stich and Patrice D. Tremoulet ; 8. Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions, Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich; 9. Ending the Rationality Wars: How to Make Disputes About Human Rationality Disappear, Richard Samuels, Stephen Stich and Michael Bishop; 10. Meta-Skepticism: Meditations on Ethno-Epistemology, Shaun Nichols, Stephen Stich and Jonathan Weinberg; 11. As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics, John Doris and Stephen Stich; 12. A Framework for the Psychology of Norms, Chandra Sripada and Stephen Stich; 13. Harm, Affect and the Moral / Conventional Distinction, Daniel Kelly, Stephen Stich, Kevin J. Haley, Serena Eng and Daniel M. T. Fessler; 14. Two Theories About the Cognitive Architecture Underlying Morality, Daniel Kelly and Stephen Stich; 15. Altruism, Stephen Stich, John Doris and Erica Roedder

Stephen Stich is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. His publications include six books, a dozen anthologies and over 150 articles. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a recipient of the Jean Nicod Prize and the first recipient of the Gittler Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences.