Rehabilitating Introspection (pdf)
A Procedure for a First Person Psychical Science

Abstract: In this paper I argue that the lack of progress in developing a science of the mind is not because a mind can not be objectively observed, but rather because human minds are highly individualized. I then propose a procedure for circumventing this individualization problem and offer a number of insights based on what are presumed to be intersubjectively reproducible features of my own mind.


Feelings of Worthlessness (pdf)
An Annotated Outline of a Theory of Emotional Instability

Abstract: In this paper I outline a theory of ego/self-worth related emotion based on the premise that 'feelings of worthlessness' are a maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality.


Rationology 101 (pdf)
How the Author of Genesis Got It Right
(and The Golden Rule Got It Wrong)

Abstract: It is generally taken as a given that rationality is strictly a matter of adjudicating means to ends. Based on the premise that 'feelings of worthlessness' are a maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality, I forego this convention by proposing a theory of rationality that encompasses the rationality of ends. One of the more interesting implications of this approach is that the moral maxim, 'Love (intrinsically value) your neighbor as you love (intrinsically value) yourself' can be construed as an imperative of an implicit theory of rationality in which 'being rational' is simply a matter of 'being objective'. Furthermore, by demonstrating how this implicit theory can address various rationality paradoxes (rational irrationality, epistemic vs. practical rationality conflict, the "rationality debate" [Cohen vs. Tversky and Kahneman], the Prisoners' Dilemma, etc.), its epistemic credentials can be shown to surpass those of competing theories such as the means/end theory, rational choice theory, egoism, utilitarianism, etc. In the final section of the paper I employ some of these insights to derive a moral 'ought' from an epistemic 'is'.


Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk
(Instead of Mr. Spock) (pdf)
The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism

Abstract: Based on Hume's observations on how association "facilitates the sympathy", I offer an alternative to the various adaptionist accounts of human benevolence in a natural world presumed to favor selfishness (kin selection, reciprocal altruism, group selection, etc.). In this scenario, the cumulative effect of Hume's logic over millennia of cultural evolution has become sufficient to have overwhelmed nature's incessant culling of the valuatively unfit (benevolent individuals). Although less than optimal, the resulting valuative profile has been tolerated by natural selection as a necessary premium for reaping the adaptive rewards that attend a rational species. Paradoxically, this would also entail the intriguing implication we have become less determined (conatively/valuatively) by natural selection as a result of natural selection.