A Design Model for Cognitive Engineering

Abstract

The author confronts some of the practical consequences of a technogenic account of cognitive agency. In the first section the author examines the commitment to a narrow locus of control shared by most extended theories of cognition, motivating a normative approach to cognitive design. The author then examines the recent appeal some normative theorists have made to responsibilist theories of knowledge to preserve their commitment. This gives the author an opportunity to explore factitious intellectual virtue as a way to defend these sorts of appeals. In the final section the author argues that factitious virtue has several benefits as a normative design model for the practice of cognitive engineering.