On Responsibility in Science and Law
Abstract
Respon’sible, liable to be called to account or render satisfaction: answerable: capable
of dis-charging duty: able to pay.2 The old Chambers’s dictionary gives a behavioristic
view of re-sponsibility: in terms of action, not thought or belief. “Lust in the heart”
is not equated to lust in flagrante. It is this view I shall explore in this paper,
rather than the more subjective notion of moral responsibility, as in “I feel moral
responsibility (i.e., guilt) for not doing anything to save the Tutsis [Hutus, ethnic
Albanians, etc.].”...
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http://hdl.handle.net/10161/5986Citation
Staddon, J. (1999) On responsibility in science and law. Social Philosophy and Policy,
16, 146-174. Reprinted in Responsibility. E. F. Paul, F. D. Miller, & J. Paul (eds.),
1999. Cambridge University Press, pp. 146-174.
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John E. R. Staddon
James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience
Until my retirement in 2007, my laboratory did experimental research on learning and
adaptive behavior, mostly with animals: pigeons, rats, fish, parakeets. We were particularly
interested in timing and memory, feeding regulation, habituation and the ways in which
pigeons and rats adapt to reward schedules. The aim is to arrive at simple models
for learning that can help to identify the underlying neural mechanisms. I continue
to do theoretical and historical work on the power law in
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