Very Bad Wizards

Episode Audio Dave and Tamler talk about the value and purposes of thought experiments in philosophy and science. Does the trolley problem tell us more about moral psychology than how people make judgments in trolley problems? Can an imagined scenario about two balls refute an almost two thousand year old theory of falling objects?  When young virgin Dave learned all the physical facts about sex, did he learn anything new when it finally happened?  All this and more in Part One of our two part episode on this topic. Links The experience machine [wikipedia.org] Mary the color scientist [wikipedia.org] Zombies [wikipedia.org] Qualia [wikipedia.org] The Violinist from "A defense of Abortion" [wikipedia.org] The Ship of Theseus [wikipedia.org] Newcomb's Paradox [wikipedia.org] Ring of Gyges [wikipedia.org] Peter Singer's thought experiment [wikipedia.org] Veil of Ignorance [wikipedia.org] Galileo's Balls [philosophical-investigations.org] Tamler's Zombie Paper Support Very Bad Wizards

Dude, do you ever think about how, like, we could be all be in the Matrix? Seriously, no no, dude, I'm being serious. It's like, none of this might be real, you know?  Actually we don't know. We honestly can't believe we made it to 50 episodes, so we must be brains in a vat. But we play along and celebrate with...a movie episode! We list our five favorite films about the subjective or questionable nature of reality. Our only rule: we couldn't choose The Matrix.  Listen to this episode--your Mom says it's psychologically taut. Links Kramer, A. D., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Rashomon (David) [imdb.com] Exit Through the Gift Shop (Tamler and David) [imdb.com] Banksy on "Life Remote Control" (clip, youtube.com) Paul Bloom on art and forgery [ted.com] Spirited Away (Tamler) [imdb.com] My Neighbor Totoro (David) [imdb.com] Mr. Snuffleupagus [wikipedia.org] Adaptation (Tamler) [imdb.com] Donnie Darko (David) [imdb.com] Stories we Tell (Tamler) [imdb.com] Waking Life (David) [imdb.com] Robert Solomon [wikipedia.org] Mulholland Drive (Tamler) [imdb.com] Tamler's Honorable Mentions Primer Dark City Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Memento The Truman Show Rosemary's Baby The Shining Purple Rose of Cairo The Conversation Shutter Island Some SPOILER ALERT Links Tim Minchin summarizes Donnie Darko in song [youtube.com] Everything you were afraid to ask about Mulholland Drive by Bill Wyman,  Max Garrone, and Andy Klein [salon.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Special guest Walter Sinnott-Armstrong joins the podcast to explain how his theory which desperately needs a new name ("contrastivism") can dissolve most of the fundamental problems and paradoxes in philosophy.  We also talk about psychopaths--what they are and what we can do about them.  But first we read and respond to an angry piece of fan mail (ok, maybe 'fan' is not the right word) from Sam Harris, trashing us--mostly Tamler--for our comments on VBW 45 about the new atheists.  Links Sam Harris debates Andrew Sullivan [samharris.org] Richard Dawkins on the harm of fairy tales (read until the end) [telegraph.co.uk] Walter Sinnott-Armtrong's Home Page [duke.edu] Sinnott‐Armstrong, W. (2008). A contrastivist manifesto. Social Epistemology, 22(3), 257-270.  Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. (2006) It's not my fault: Global warming and individual moral obligations. Advances in the Economics of Environmental Resources 5, 285-307. The Memory of Jurors: Enhancing Trial Performance by Anders Sandberg, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Julian Savulescu. Special Guest: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler take a mulligan and try to resolve their conflict about restorative justice.  Do restorative processes lead to more just outcomes than other approaches? Is it more vulnerable to instances of prejudice and bias? Is revenge a form of restorative justice? Also, on this episode: can being sexist get you killed in a hurricane? Are replication attempts a form of bullying? And why is Dave hoarding gefilte fish in his pantry? Links Ed Yong on Hurricane Study [phenomena.nationalgeographic.com] Scatterplot blog on hurricane study [scatter.wordpress.com] Simine Vazire on "Repligate" [sometimesimwrong.typepad.com] Restorative Justice online [restorativejustice.org] "Restorative Justice in Texas: Past, Present, and Future."  by Mark Levin [texaspolicy.com] Bridges to Life [bridgestolife.org] Michelle Anderson The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [amazon.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Tamler and David leech off of their listeners and dedicate an episode to their favorite comments, questions, and criticisms from the past few weeks (but not before Tamler goes on a rant about bicycle helmets). Included in this episode: Does doing research on hypothetical moral dilemmas actually say anything about how people would act in real life? Do people make different moral judgments in their native language than in a more recently acquired language? Do Tamler and David only appeal to intuitions when it's convenient for the view they are defending? Do they hold "barbaric" views about justice and revenge? Does doing philosophy make your life better? And, perhaps most importantly, why do we seem to mention porn on every episode?  Links Bicycle helmet effectiveness [wikipedia.org] Tamler's appearance on The Partially Examined Life podcast [partiallyexaminedlife.com] Axons and Axioms podcast [axonsandaxioms.com] Spacetime Mind podcast [spacetimemind.com] A valuable site if you're interested in putting together your own podcast: Dan Benjamin's Podcasting Handbook [podcastinghandbook.co] If you like the music we use, you can listen/download here: soundcloud.com/peezismyname Pea Soup Blog [peasoup.typepad.com] Qualia [wikipedia.org] Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion" [wikipedia.org] Entranced by Reality by Ian Corbin (Review of "A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning" by Robert Zaretsky). [theamericanconservative.com] Iranian killer's execution halted at last minute by victim's parents by Saeed Kamali Dehghan [theguardian.com] Academic Articles Mentioned Bartels, Daniel M. (2008), "Principled Moral Sentiment and the Flexibility of Moral Judgment and Decision Making," Cognition, 108, 381-417. [uchicago.edu] Costa, A., Foucart, A., Hayakawa, S., Aparici, M., Apesteguia, J., Heafner, J., & Keysar, B. (2014). Your Morals Depend on Language. PloS one, 9(4), e94842. [plosone.org] Gold, N., Colman, A. M., & Pulford, B. D. (2014). Cultural differences in responses to real-life and hypothetical trolley problems. Judgment and Decision Making, 9, 65-76. [sjdm.org] Special thanks to listeners (in order of question-appearance) Jakub Maly, Mark Ellis, Derek Leben, Jennifer Cohen, Rob Sica, Larson Landes, Billie Pritchett, Dave Herman, Otakar Horak, Monique Oliveira, Paul Bello, and Dag Soras.  Support Very Bad Wizards

May I have your attention please? Will the real Josh Knobe please stand up? Will the real... [you know what, screw this--we're just dating ourselves.] X-phi phenom Josh Knobe rejoins the podcast to talk about the true self, naked people, gay preachers, and the Talmud. Plus, what happens when Tamler takes a sleeping pill by mistake in the afternoon and goes on Facebook? Why do you have get so drunk on Purim? And Dave discovers a Google-assisted loophole that allows you to be an immoral shit your whole life and get away with it.  Links Joshua Knobe's home page [yale.edu] XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders [amazon.com affiliate link] Gray, K., Knobe, J., Sheskin, M., Bloom, P., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). More than a body: mind perception and the nature of objectification. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101, 1207. [yale.edu] Moral Scrupulosity [wikipedia.org] Newman, G. E., Bloom, P., & Knobe, J. (2014). Value Judgments and the True Self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 203-216. [verybadwizards.com] Frankfurt on the Hierarchical Will: Frankfurt, H. G. (1988). Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person (pp. 127-144). Humana Press. [verybadwizards.com] "Tarred and Feathered" episode of "This American Life," covering a man who started a support group to keep pedophiles from victimizing children. [thisamericanlife.org] Purim [wikipedia.org] Simchat Torah [wikipedia.org] Pizarro, D.A., Uhlmann, E., & Salovey, P. (2003). Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: The role of perceived metadesires. Psychological Science, 14, 267-272. [peezer.net] Cohen, A. B., & Rozin, P. (2001). Religion and the morality of mentality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 81, 697. [upenn.edu] Newman, G. E., Lockhart, K. L., & Keil, F. C. (2010). “End-of-life†biases in moral evaluations of others. Cognition, 115, 343-349. [yale.edu] Stupid Sexy Flanders! Special Guest: Joshua Knobe. Support Very Bad Wizards

A British tabloid article about kids, brains, and spatial skills somehow provokes the biggest argument ever on the podcast. Dave and Tamler get into it about gender, toys, properly rounded brains, and balanced "play diets." Is Dave a sanctimonious toe-the-line academic liberal?  Is Tamler a Fox-News watching, mysoginist genetic determinist? Do they actually disagree about anything?  Plus Dave takes Tamler back after his fling with Partially Examined Life,  and we discuss whether the new documentary The Unbelievers the atheist version of God is Not Dead? Links The Partially Examined Life podcast, and Tamler's Precognition of Ep. 93. [partiallyexaminedlife.com] Girls and boys DO have different brains – should they have different toys? by Rachel Carlyle [express.co.uk] The Unbelievers [unbelieversmovie.com] My Growing Disappointment with the New Atheist Movement: A Review of the The UnBelievers.  Ami Palmer.  [missiontotransition.blogspot.com] Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2002). Math= male, me= female, therefore math≠ me. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83, 44. [briannosek.com] Cvencek, D., Meltzoff, A. N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2011). Math–gender stereotypes in elementary school children. Child development, 82, 766-779. [washington.edu] Support Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler argue about the use of autonomous robots and drones in warfare.  Could it lead to less suffering during wars and afterwards? Would nations be motivated to design robots that behave ethically on the battlefield? Can David get through an episode without mentioning Star Trek? Plus, Tamler distances himself from the villainous philosophy professor in the new movie God is Not Dead and David complains about the growing number of porn journals.   Links Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) [kipp.org] God's Not Dead [imdb.org] Arkin, R. C. (2010). The case for ethical autonomy in unmanned systems. Journal of Military Ethics, 9(4), 332-341. Kahn, P. W. (2002). The Paradox of Riskless Warfare. Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly, 22(3), 2-7. [yale.edu] Singer, P. W. (2009). Wired for war: The robotics revolution and conflict in the twenty-first century. Penguin. [amazon.com affiliate link]  "A Taste of Armageddon" Episode 23, Star Trek (The Original Series) [wikipedia.org] Moral Machines in the Military Sphere by Dr. Paul Bello. http://robotsandyou.eucognition.org Bio: Paul Bello joined the Office of Naval Research as a Program Officer in the Warfighter Performance and Protections Department in May of 2007. Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler talk about a recent study that seems to support the view that "justice is what the judge had for breakfast" (or at least how long ago the parole board had breakfast), and that makes Tamler question his position on widening judicial discretion in criminal justice.  In the second segment David tries to work out his guilt about manipulating consumers into buying stuff for whatever shadowy organization employs him (BEWorks!), and we discuss the ethics of nudges in government and consumer marketing. Should the government frame issues like organ donation in ways that will benefit society? How much of a threat are nudges to our autonomy? Should Apple take steps to ensure that people can control themselves when making in-app purchases? Tamler even comes up with a "theory," which means that there must have been something wrong with him. Please note that portions of the audio during the second segment are little spotty, likely due to a hex or poltergeist in one of the microphones.  We'll have that worked out for the next episode.  Enjoy!      (For the handful who have asked--if you like the music David makes for the podcast, you can listen/download to your heart's content at www.soundcloud.com/peezismyname). Links Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 6889-6892. [pnas.org] "Prisoners of our own resources" by Jonathan Levav, TEDx Rio de la Plata [youtube.com] Capestany, B. H., & Harris, L. T. (2014). Disgust and biological descriptions bias logical reasoning during legal decision-making. Social neuroscience, 1-13. [tandfonline.com] Asymmetric Dominance (Decoy Effect) [wikipedia.org] Opting-in vs Opting-out of organ donations [nytimes.com] The evil stuff people do with in app purchases and games [ibtimes.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Can a fully determined creature deliberate? How big a role does conscious reasoning play in moral judgment and everyday life? Are we responsible for our thoughts and actions? Paul Bloom rejoins us against his better judgment to discuss his book "Just Babies" and his recent article in The Atlantic that set the internet on the fire and riled up the likes of Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne.  Plus, what's the difference (if any) between getting into a Star Trek transporter and getting an axe to the head, and why does David know so much about boy bands? Links Just Babies by Paul Bloom [amazon.com-vbw affiliate link] The War on Reason by Paul Bloom [theatlantic.com] Jerry Coyne replies to Paul Bloom's Article [whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com] Bloom replies to Coyne [whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com] Tamler is the only one who realized he has a face for radio.  Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Support Very Bad Wizards