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115Adams conditionals and non-monotonic probabilitiesJournal of Logic, Language and Information 15 (1-2): 65-81. 2006.Adams' famous thesis that the probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities is incompatible with standard probability theory. Indeed it is incompatible with any system of monotonic conditional probability satisfying the usual multiplication rule for conditional probabilities. This paper explores the possibility of accommodating Adams' thesis in systems of non-monotonic probability of varying strength. It shows that such systems impose many familiar lattice theoretic properties on t…Read more
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113Becker’s thesis and three models of preference changePolitics, Philosophy and Economics 8 (2): 223-242. 2009.This article examines Becker's thesis that the hypothesis that choices maximize expected utility relative to fixed and universal tastes provides a general framework for the explanation of behaviour. Three different models of preference revision are presented and their scope evaluated. The first, the classical conditioning model, explains all changes in preferences in terms of changes in the information held by the agent, holding fundamental beliefs and desires fixed. The second, the Jeffrey cond…Read more
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111Indicative conditionalsErkenntnis 56 (3): 345-378. 2002.Adams Thesis has much evidence in its favour, but David Lewis famously showed that it cannot be true, in all but the most trivial of cases, if conditionals are proprositions and their probabilities are classical probabilities of truth. In this paper I show thatsimilar results can be constructed for a much wider class of conditionals. The fact that these results presuppose that the logic of conditionals is Boolean motivates a search for a non-Boolean alternative. It is argued that the exact propo…Read more
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99Comparing evaluationsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt1): 85-100. 2008.This paper explores the problem of comparing the strengths of different individual's attitudes, and especially their evaluative attitudes, by looking at how measures of these quantities are obtained. I argue that comparisons of both strengths of belief and relative strengths of preference and desire are justified by the causal role they play in the production of action.
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91Impartial Evaluation under AmbiguityEthics 132 (3): 541-569. 2022.How should an impartial social observer judge distributions of well-being across different individuals when there is uncertainty regarding the state of the world? I explore this question by imposing very weak conditions of rationality and benevolent sympathy on impartial betterness judgments under uncertainty. Although weak enough to be consistent with all the main theories of rationality, these conditions prove to be sufficient to rule out any heterogeneity in what is good for individuals, to r…Read more
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89Realistic opinion aggregation: Lehrer-Wagner with a finite set of opinion valuesEpisteme 9 (2): 91-99. 2012.An allocation problem is a type of aggregation problem in which the values of individuals' opinions on some set of variables (canonically a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive possibilities) sum to a constant. This paper shows that for realistic allocation problems, namely ones in which the set of possible opinion values is finite, the only universal aggregation methods that satisfy two commonly invoked conditions are the dictatorial ones. The two conditions are, first, that the aggregate o…Read more
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89This paper explores some aspects of the relation between different ways of achieving a consensus on the judgemental values of a group of indviduals; in particular, aggregation and deliberation. We argue firstly that the framing of an aggregation problem itself generates information that individuals are rationally obliged to take into account. And secondly that outputs of the deliberative process that this initiates is in tension with constraints on consensual values typically imposed by aggregat…Read more
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89A (mainly epistemic) case for multiple-vote majority ruleEpisteme 9 (1): 63-79. 2012.Multiple-vote majority rule is a procedure for making group decisions in which individuals weight their votes on issues in accordance with how competent they are on them. When individuals are motivated by the truth and know their relative competence on different issues, multiple-vote majority rule performs nearly as well, epistemically speaking, as rule by an expert oligarchy, but is still acceptable from the point of view of equal participation in the political process.Send article to KindleTo …Read more
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79More trivialityJournal of Philosophical Logic 28 (2): 129-139. 1999.This paper uses the framework of Popper and Miller's work on axiom systems for conditional probabilities to explore Adams' thesis concerning the probabilities of conditionals. It is shown that even very weak axiom systems have only a very restricted set of models satisfying a natural generalisation of Adams' thesis, thereby casting severe doubt on the possibility of developing a non-Boolean semantics for conditionals consistent with it
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78Ramsey and the measurement of beliefIn David Corfield & Jon Williamson (eds.), Foundations of Bayesianism, . 2001.Foundations of Bayesianism is an authoritative collection of papers addressing the key challenges that face the Bayesian interpretation of probability today. Some of these papers seek to clarify the relationships between Bayesian, causal and logical reasoning. Others consider the application of Bayesianism to artificial intelligence, decision theory, statistics and the philosophy of science and mathematics. The volume includes important criticisms of Bayesian reasoning and also gives an insight …Read more
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56Review. Explorations in economic methodology: From Lakatos to empirical philosophy of science. R Backhouse (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (2): 316-318. 1999.
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42Bayesian utilitarianism and probability homogeneitySocial Choice and Welfare 24 (2): 221-251. 2005.
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39Models and reality in economics, Steven Rappaport. Edward elgar, 1998, VI + 233 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 16 (1): 147-174. 2000.
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38Book review: Roger Backhouse 'explorations in economic methodology: from Lakatos to empirical philosophy of science'British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (2): 316-318. 1999.
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38Consensus by aggregation and deliberationHommage a Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. 2007.On the face of it both aggregation and deliberation represent alternative ways of producing a consensus. I argue, however, that the adequacy of aggregation mechanisms should be evaluated with an eye to the effects, both possible and actual, of public deliberation. Such an evaluation is undertaken by sketching a Bayesian model of deliberation as learning from others.
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26Review. Steven Rappaport 'Models and reality in economics' [book review]Economics and Philosophy 16 (1): 159-163. 2000.
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22Decision Theory: A Formal Philosophical IntroductionIn Sven Ove Hansson & Vincent F. Hendricks (eds.), Introduction to Formal Philosophy, Springer. pp. 611-655. 2012.Decision theory is the study of how choices are and should be made.in a variety of different contexts. Here we look at the topic from a formal-philosophical point of view with a focus on normative and conceptual issues. After considering the question of how decision problems should be framed, we look at the both the standard theories of chance under conditions of certainty, risk and uncertainty and some of the current debates about how uncertainty should be measured and how agents should respond…Read more
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21Fitting Things Together: Coherence and the Requirements of Structural Rationality, Alex Worsnip, Oxford University Press, 2021, xvii + 335 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 40 (1): 228-233. 2024.
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19The Principal Principle and the contingent a prioriEconomics and Philosophy 1-6. forthcoming.In Chapter 6 of Objects of Credence, Anna Mahtani argues that the opacity of credence raises difficulties for the Principal Principle and proposes a revised principle relating credence and chance that avoids it. In this comment on her book, I both defend Mahtani’s proposed principle against a charge of triviality and argue that the opacity of belief does not threaten the role of chance in guiding credence.
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13Desire-as-belief revisitedThe Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics. 2008.
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10IntroductionEconomics and Philosophy 1-1. forthcoming.As readers of this journal can attest to, although philosophers and economists are somewhat used to talking to and learning from each other, it tends to be the subset of philosophers working in decision theory, philosophy of science, and particular areas of ethics and political philosophy that contribute to our interdisciplinary field of research. The book that is the subject of this review symposium, Anna Mahtani’s The Objects of Credence (Oxford University Press, 2024), is a wonderful exemplar…Read more
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Repeating the unrepeatable experimentIn Alison Wylie & Robert Chapman (eds.), Material Evidence, Routledge. 2014.
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The Representation of Beliefs and Desires Within Decision TheoryDissertation, The University of Chicago. 1997.This dissertation interprets the lack of uniqueness in probability representations of agents' degrees of belief in the decision theory of Richard Jeffrey as a formal statement of an important epistemological problem: the underdetermination of our attributions of belief and desire to agents by the evidence of their observed behaviour. A solution is pursued through investigation of agents' attitudes to information of a conditional nature. ;As a first step, Jeffrey's theory is extended to agents' c…Read more
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