DOCSLIB.ORG

A Balanced Mind from Biased Processes

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Balanced Mind from Biased Processes A Whole that may be Greater than the Sum of its Parts: A Balanced Mind from Biased Processes Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Adam Edward Hasinski, B.A. Graduate Program in Psychology The Ohio State University 2010 Thesis Committee: William A. Cunningham, Advisor Gary G. Berntson Russell H. Fazio Copyright by Adam Edward Hasinski 2010 Abstract We propose that evaluative biases, often taken as evidence for the fallibility of human judgment, serve as valuable heuristics, as long as uncertainty is high, by allowing organisms to safely learn about their environment. As uncertainty diminishes via experience, these biases lose their utility and should also wane. Further, we argue that multiple evaluative biases may work in dynamic opposition to produce individuals with balanced and flexible decision-making abilities. These hypotheses were tested using reinforcement learning models to predict subject’s evaluative representations in a newly designed learning task. These computational models indicate that multiple biased decision-making processes influence evaluation under uncertainty. Further our models suggest that these biases act antagonistically towards one another. Finally, our last model indicates that these biases decrease with increasing exposure to the learning environment. The implications of these findings are discussed. ii Dedication Dedicated to my parents, Ed and Linda Hasinski iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the former and current members of the Social, Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Lab—Nathan Arbuckle, Andrew Jahn, Ingrid Johnsen, Tabitha Kirkland, Samantha Mowrer, Dominic Packer, and Jay Van Bavel—for their endless supply of support, patience, and baked goods. I would also like to thank my research assistants—Geetha Athanki, Anna Preston, and Jessica Stum—for their help in collecting data. I am grateful for the insightful comments and words of encouragement from various students and faculty within OSU’s psychology department. I am also grateful to my family for their never-ending support, understanding and confidence in me. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Wil Cunningham, for his encouragement, his contagious enthusiasm, and his ability to always see the bright side. iv Vita 2008........................................B.A. Psychology & History, Ohio University 2008-2009...............................Graduate Fellow, The Ohio State University 2009-present...........................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Publications 1. Ratcliff, J. J., Lassiter, G. D., Jager, V. M., Lindberg, M. J., Elek, J. K., Hasinski, A. E. (2010). The Hidden Consequences of Racial Salience in Videotaped Interrogations and Confessions. Psychology, Public Policy & Law, 16, 2, 200-218 Fields of Study Major Field: Psychology v Table of Contents Page Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication...........................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................iv Vita.......................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents................................................................................................................vi List of Tables.....................................................................................................................vii List of Figures...................................................................................................................viii Chapters: 1. Introduction..............................................................................................................1 2. Method...................................................................................................................21 3. Behavioral Analysis...............................................................................................25 4. Model 1: Results & Discussion............................................................................27 5. Model 2: Results & Discussion............................................................................29 6. Model 3: Results & Discussion...........................................................................33 7. General Discussion................................................................................................35 List of References..............................................................................................................46 Appendix A: Tables and Figures.......................................................................................53 vi List of Tables Table Page 1 Reinforcement learning equations.........................................................................54 vii List of Figures Figure Page 1 Conceptual overview of the computational modeling process..............................55 2 Example trial from the value estimation task........................................................56 3 Single subject value output from Model 1…………………................................57 viii Chapter 1: Introduction Attitudes and evaluations help individuals select appropriate actions in a complicated, ever-changing and often dangerous world. Attitudes are stores of information, derived from experience, used for the purpose of making evaluative judgments about a given object (e.g. Ajzen, 1991; Cunningham, Zelazo, Packer & Van Bavel, 2007; Fazio & Olson, 2003). For the development of accurate attitude representations, they must be updatable as new information from the environment becomes available. The utility of evaluations depends on their ability to correctly influence behaviors. Therefore, attitudes and the evaluations they generate form a circuit with behavior and the environment. Attitudes form the basis of the evaluations that guide behavioral interactions with the environment. The consequences of these interactions then update attitudes. In attempting to delineate the boundaries of human cognitive performance, considerable attention has been focused on biases. Broadly speaking, biases refer to the systematic errors in the result of some mental function. The study of bias not only highlights the limitations of human reasoning, but also has the potential to also elucidate reasoning’s component mechanisms. Much like vision researchers use instances of vision failure—via optical illusions—to piece together the visual process, decision researchers can use evaluative biases to better understand the processes underlying 1 human decision-making ability (e.g. Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Of course, in the real world, determining what information is relevant can be an exceedingly difficult matter, for subject and researcher alike. In response to the murky nature of reality, experimental psychologists have constructed a variety of artificial contexts that clearly, in the eyes of the experimenter, distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant. After decades of research, it’s no longer contentious to claim the human mind contains, or is laden with, bias. Various research camps have made great strides understanding what biases exist, in what contexts they operate, and what function—if any—they serve (e.g. Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). Though research into evaluative biases is far from exhaustive, the general wealth of research findings supporting the existence of biases has, in the minds of some, painted a bleak picture of human evaluative abilities. What are we to make of human cognitive abilities in the face of such evidence? Does the extant research suggest that the human mind at its core is—much to the chagrin of economists—a hopelessly irrational machine? Though various camps have argued against the existence of such irrationality (e.g. Gigerenzer & Goldstein, 1996), the argument often becomes one of semantics, hinging on one’s precise definition of rationality. At best, the evidence from these various researchers tends to further elucidate the conditions under which a given bias will or won’t manifest itself, thereby attenuating the claims of the bias-supporters without repudiating their essence (Gigerenzer 2006, Todd & Gigerenzer, 2000). How then does this body of literature fit in with the well- known truism that humans have survived a hostile and changing world for hundreds of millennia? The answer: biased processes are not necessarily useless or even defective; in 2 contrast, their biased nature may prove to be useful. This has been the often-articulated explanation for the well-documented negativity bias (e.g. Baumeister, et al., 2001). While intuitively appealing, the claim is incredibly difficult to verify or falsify. Furthermore, the claim appears less solid under rigorous logical scrutiny. The existence of biases are often explained by gesturing to evolution and suggesting, seemingly logically, that such a bias would increase the fitness of organisms who possess it. Ironically, this argument could be spun to fit a valence asymmetry in either direction. That is one may argue, in line with the majority of the literature, that “it is better to be safe than sorry;” therefore, negativity biases, serve to guide organisms away from potentially fatal dangers. Conversely one could
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bad Is Stronger Than Good
    Review of General Psychology Copyright 2001 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2001. Vol. 5. No. 4. 323-370 1089-2680/O1/S5.O0 DOI: 10.1037//1089-2680.5.4.323 Bad Is Stronger Than Good Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky Catrin Finkenauer Case Western Reserve University Free University of Amsterdam Kathleen D. Vohs Case Western Reserve University The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interper- sonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and sa- lience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena. Centuries of literary efforts and religious pothesis that bad is stronger than good (see also thought have depicted human life in terms of a Rozin & Royzman, in press). That is, events struggle between good and bad forces. At the that are negatively valenced (e.g., losing metaphysical level, evil gods or devils are the money, being abandoned by friends, and receiv- opponents of the divine forces of creation and ing criticism) will have a greater impact on the harmony.
    [Show full text]
  • A Task-Based Taxonomy of Cognitive Biases for Information Visualization
    A Task-based Taxonomy of Cognitive Biases for Information Visualization Evanthia Dimara, Steven Franconeri, Catherine Plaisant, Anastasia Bezerianos, and Pierre Dragicevic Three kinds of limitations The Computer The Display 2 Three kinds of limitations The Computer The Display The Human 3 Three kinds of limitations: humans • Human vision ️ has limitations • Human reasoning 易 has limitations The Human 4 ️Perceptual bias Magnitude estimation 5 ️Perceptual bias Magnitude estimation Color perception 6 易 Cognitive bias Behaviors when humans consistently behave irrationally Pohl’s criteria distilled: • Are predictable and consistent • People are unaware they’re doing them • Are not misunderstandings 7 Ambiguity effect, Anchoring or focalism, Anthropocentric thinking, Anthropomorphism or personification, Attentional bias, Attribute substitution, Automation bias, Availability heuristic, Availability cascade, Backfire effect, Bandwagon effect, Base rate fallacy or Base rate neglect, Belief bias, Ben Franklin effect, Berkson's paradox, Bias blind spot, Choice-supportive bias, Clustering illusion, Compassion fade, Confirmation bias, Congruence bias, Conjunction fallacy, Conservatism (belief revision), Continued influence effect, Contrast effect, Courtesy bias, Curse of knowledge, Declinism, Decoy effect, Default effect, Denomination effect, Disposition effect, Distinction bias, Dread aversion, Dunning–Kruger effect, Duration neglect, Empathy gap, End-of-history illusion, Endowment effect, Exaggerated expectation, Experimenter's or expectation bias,
    [Show full text]
  • Gender De-Biasing in Speech Emotion Recognition
    INTERSPEECH 2019 September 15–19, 2019, Graz, Austria Gender de-biasing in speech emotion recognition Cristina Gorrostieta, Reza Lotfian, Kye Taylor, Richard Brutti, John Kane Cogito Corporation fcgorrostieta,rlotfian,ktaylor,rbrutti,jkaneg @cogitocorp.com Abstract vertisement delivery [9], object classification [10] and image search results for occupations [11] . Machine learning can unintentionally encode and amplify neg- There are several factors which can contribute to produc- ative bias and stereotypes present in humans, be they conscious ing negative bias in machine learning models. One major cause or unconscious. This has led to high-profile cases where ma- is incomplete or skewed training data. If certain demographic chine learning systems have been found to exhibit bias towards categories are missing from the training data, models developed gender, race, and ethnicity, among other demographic cate- on this can fail to generalise when applied to new data contain- gories. Negative bias can be encoded in these algorithms based ing those missing categories. The majority of models deployed on: the representation of different population categories in the in modern technology applications are based on supervised ma- training data; bias arising from manual human labeling of these chine learning and much of the labeled data comes from people. data; as well as modeling types and optimisation approaches. In Labels can include movie reviews, hotel ratings, image descrip- this paper we assess the effect of gender bias in speech emotion tions, audio transcriptions, and perceptual ratings of emotion. recognition and find that emotional activation model accuracy is As people are inherently biased, and because models are an es- consistently lower for female compared to male audio samples.
    [Show full text]
  • Unit IV Topic II
    APPROACHES IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT IV, TOPIC II (A) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND • Until the end of 1970s, optimism was considered to be a sign of immaturity and weakness. • In “Future of an Illusion”, Freud (1928) treated optimism as a benevolent father like God who would reward us in the afterlife if we controlled our aggressive and sexual instincts. Which he said was an illusion necessary for civilization. • Matlin and Stang ( 1978) in “The Pollyanna Principle” showed that people’s thinking processes were optimistic. They viewed themselves more positively than negatively except when they were anxious or depressed. • Tiger (1979) in “Optimism: The Biology of Hope”, argued that the capacity to think in an optimistic way was a naturally selected characteristics of of our species which evolved when we developed the capacity to reflect on our future. APPROACHES IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY • Three research traditions have thrown considerable light on how and why people take a positive view of the world. These traditions focus on” Ø Positive illusions and self-deception; Ø Optimism; Ø Hope. POSITIVE ILLUSIONS Shelly Taylor (1989), summarized research which showed that most people, especially, “healthy people, are biased towards viewing themselves in an optimistic way” Human thought is distinguished by a robust positive bias. That is, our minds are designed to think in positive rather than realistic or negative ways. There are three main ways in which people see themselves in a more positive light than is warranted by the facts of the situation, or other peoples’ views of the situation: First, they see their past behavior, personal attributes and self as a person in an enhanced light.
    [Show full text]
  • Information to Users
    INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 BIASES IN IMPRESSION FORMATION. A DEMONSTRATION OF A BIVARIATE MODEL OF EVALUATION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Wendi L.
    [Show full text]
  • From Pollyanna to the Pollyanna Principle. a Response to Michael
    Global Issues From Pollyanna to the Pollyanna Principle Response to Michael Burawoy’s ‘From Polanyi to Pollyanna: The False Optimism of Global Labour Studies’ (GLJ 1.2) Donella Caspersz, University of Western Australia Business School In Burawoy’s ‘From Polayni to Pollyanna; The False Optimism of Global Studies’ in Global Labour Journal, [GLJ 1(2): 301-313] he critiques Evans, Webster, Lambert and Bezuidenhout, among others for providing ‘renderings that appeal to and search for laborist counter-movements to market fundamentalism’, by drawing on ‘optimistic renderings of Polayni’, most particularly the Polaynian concepts of the ‘so called double-movement, the countermovement to market expansion’. Burawoy argues these accounts are ‘not clear in what way these movements are counter-hegemonic’, asserting that they ultimately remain those of local (national) struggles generating local (national) not international effects, particularly negating their claim that they ‘effectively build international solidarity’ and hence challenge the hegemony of globalization (aka capitalism). Burawoy (as always) provides food for thought especially when asking which is the most salient experience in our world today – exploitation or commodification? He argues for the latter and then proceeds to ‘reconstruct Polayni’ to illustrate that because it is the commodification of labour, money and nature (in today’s 3rd wave marketization), ‘thinking that the industrial sector’ will remain the most effective site of resistance, is problematic. Burawoy thus cautions that ‘[O]ptimism today has to be countered by an uncompromising pessimism’. Instead, we need ‘a careful and detailed analysis of the way capitalism combines the commodification of nature, money and labor, and thereby destroys the very ground upon which a ‘counter-movement’ can be built’ (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Flagging Patriotism
    FLAGGING PATRIOTISM RT226X.indb 1 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM RT226X.indb 2 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM FLAGGING PATRIOTISM Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism New York London Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business RT226X.indb 3 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN © 2007 by Robert Stam & Ella Shohat Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-97922-6 (Softcover) 0-415-97921-8 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97922-1 (Softcover) 978-0-415-97921-4 (Hardcover) No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge-ny.com RT226X.indb 4 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM To Stephen Colbert, Janeane Garofalo, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, and all the other patriotic clowns who have kept us sane in crazy times RT226X.indb 5 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM RT226X.indb 6 11/10/06 2:43:50 PM CONTENts Acknowledgments ix Preface: Love, Hate, and the Nation-State xi 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Optimism Bias and Differential Information Use in Supply Chain Forecasting
    Optimism bias and differential information use in supply chain forecasting Robert Fildes Dept. Management Science, Lancaster University, LA1 4YX, UK Email: [email protected] Paul Goodwin*, School of Management, University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY,UK Tel: 44-1225-383594 Fax: 44-1225-386473 Email: [email protected] August 2011 * Corresponding author Acknowledgements This research was supported by a grant from SAS and the International Institute of Forecasters. 1 Abstract Companies tend to produce over optimistic forecasts of demand. Psychologists have suggested that optimism, at least in part, results from selective bias in processing information. When high demand is more desirable than low demand information favouring high demand may carry more weight than information that suggests the opposite. To test this, participants in an experiment used a prototypical forecasting support system to forecast the demand uplift resulting from sales promotion campaigns. One group was rewarded if demand exceeded an uplift of 80%. All of the participants were also supplied with information some of which supported an uplift of greater than 80% and some of which suggested that the uplift would fall below this value. This enabled an assessment to be made of the extent to which those who were rewarded if the uplift exceeded 80% paid more attention to the positive information than those who were not rewarded. While the experiment provided strong evidence of desirability bias there was no evidence that the group receiving rewards for sales exceeding the threshold made greater use of positive reasons. Possible explanations for this are discussed, together with the implications for forecasting support system design.
    [Show full text]
  • Sad, Thus True. Negativity Bias in Judgments of Truth Benjamin E
    Sad, thus true. Negativity bias in judgments of truth Benjamin E. Hilbig To cite this version: Benjamin E. Hilbig. Sad, thus true. Negativity bias in judgments of truth. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Elsevier, 2009, 45 (4), pp.983. 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.012. hal-00687909 HAL Id: hal-00687909 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00687909 Submitted on 16 Apr 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Accepted Manuscript Sad, thus true. Negativity bias in judgments of truth Benjamin E. Hilbig PII: S0022-1031(09)00093-6 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.012 Reference: YJESP 2250 To appear in: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Received Date: 24 October 2008 Revised Date: 30 March 2009 Accepted Date: 4 April 2009 Please cite this article as: Hilbig, B.E., Sad, thus true. Negativity bias in judgments of truth, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2009), doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.012 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript.
    [Show full text]
  • Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion
    Personality and Social Psychology Review Copyright © 2001 by 2001, Vol. 5, No. 4, 296–320 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion Paul Rozin and Edward B. Royzman Department of Psychology and Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict University of Pennsylvania We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innate predispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to negative entities (e.g., events, objects, personal traits). This is manifested in 4 ways: (a) negative potency (negative entities are stronger than the equivalent positive entities), (b) steeper nega- tive gradients (the negativity of negative events grows more rapidly with approach to them in space or time than does the positivity of positive events, (c) negativity domi- nance (combinations of negative and positive entities yield evaluations that are more negative than the algebraic sum of individual subjective valences would predict), and (d) negative differentiation (negative entities are more varied, yield more complex conceptual representations, and engage a wider response repertoire). We review evi- dence for this taxonomy, with emphasis on negativity dominance, including literary, historical, religious, and cultural sources, as well as the psychological literatures on learning, attention, impression formation, contagion, moral judgment, development, and memory. We then consider a variety of theoretical accounts for negativity bias. We suggest that 1 feature of negative events that make them dominant is that negative enti- ties are more contagious than positive entities. Brief contact with a cockroach will usually render taminated—that is, lowered in social status—by a delicious meal inedible.
    [Show full text]
  • THE INFLATED SELF the INFLATED SELF Human Illusions and the Biblical Call to Hope
    THE INFLATED SELF THE INFLATED SELF Human Illusions and the Biblical Call to Hope DAVID G. MYERS The Seabury Press * New York 1981 The Seabury Press 815 Second Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 Copyright © 1980 by David G. Myers All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system, or transmitted, in anyform or by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of The Seabury Press. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalogingin Publication Data Myers, David G The inflated self. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Good and evil. 2. Beliefand doubt. 3. Hope. I. Title. BJ1401.M86 24r.3 80-16427 ISBN: 0-8I64-2326-I Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for per mission to use the materials listed: American Psychological Association for a chart excerpted from "Meta- Analysis of Psychotherapy Outcome Studies," by Mary Lee Smith and Gene V. Glass which appeared in volume 32 of the American Psychologist. Faber and Faber Ltd for excerpts from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Hollow Men" in Collected Poems 1909-1962 byT. S. Eliot. Harcourt BraceJovanovich, Inc. for excerptsfrom "The LoveSongof J. AlfredPrufrock" in Collected Poems 1909-1962 byT. S. Eliot, and for excerpts from the "The Hollow Men" in Collected Poems 1909- 1962 by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1936by Harcourt BraceJovanovich, Inc.; copyright 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Three Rivers PoetryJournal for the poem "The Healers" by Jack Ridl. To my parents Kenneth Gordon Myers Luella Nelson Myers Lord, I have given up my pride and turned away from my arrogance.
    [Show full text]
  • Disability and the Good Human Life
    DISABILITY AND THE GOOD HUMAN LIFE This collection of original essays, from both established scholars and new- comers, takes up a debate that has recently flared up in philosophy, sociology, and disability studies on whether disability is intrinsically a harm that lowers a person’s quality of life. While this is a new question in disability scholarship, it also touches on one of the oldest philosophical questions: What is the good human life? Historically, philosophers have not been interested in the topic of disability, and when they are it is usually only in relation to questions such as euthanasia, abortion, or the moral status of disabled people. Consequently, implicitly or explicitly, disability has been either ignored by moral and political philosophers or simply equated with a bad human life, a life not worth living. This book takes up the challenge that disability poses to basic questions of political philosophy and bioethics, among others, by focusing on fundamental issues as well as practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life. Jerome E. Bickenbach is the leader of the Disability Policy Unit and a profes- sor in the Department of Health Sciences and Health Policy at the University of Lucerne and Swiss Paraplegic Research, Nottwil, Switzerland. Franziska Felder is a senior researcher in the Department of Education at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Barbara Schmitz is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, Switzerland. CAMBRIDGE DISABILITY LAW AND POLICY SERIES Edited by Peter Blanck and Robin Paul Malloy The Cambridge Disability Law and Policy series examines these topics in interdisciplinary and comparative terms.
    [Show full text]