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24Democratic answers to complex questions: an epistemic perspectiveIn Matti Sintonen (ed.), The Socratic Tradition: Questioning as Philosophy and as Method. Texts in philosophy, . pp. 223-251. 2006.This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is better as a t…Read more
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23Value: fitting-attitudes account ofIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Wiley. 2022.According to an influential tradition in value analysis, to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-attitude – a fitting object of favoring. If it is fitting to favor an object for its own sake, then, in this view, the object has final value. If it is fitting to favor an object for the sake of its effects, then its value is instrumental. Disvalue is connected in the analogous way to disfavoring, i.e., to con-attitudes. For a history of this fitting-attitudes analysis, or FA-analysis for s…Read more
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23Patterns of Value - Essays on Formal Axiology and Value Analysis (edited book)Lund University Department of Philosophy. 2003.
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23Pragmatic arguments for rationality constraintsIn Maria Carla Galavotti, Roberto Scazzieri & Patrick Suppes (eds.), Reasoning, Rationality and Probability, . pp. 139-163. 2008.My focus is on pragmatic arguments for various rationality constraints on a decision maker’s state of mind: on his beliefs or preferences. An argument of this kind purports to show that a violator of a given constraint can be exposed to a decision problem in which she will act to her guaranteed disadvantage. Dramatically put, she can be exploited by a clever bookie who doesn’t know more than the agent himself. Examples of pragmatic arguments of this kind are synchronic Dutch Books, for the stand…Read more
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22Money pump with foresightIn Michael J. Almeida (ed.), Imperceptible Harms and Benefits, . pp. 123-154. 2000.I describe in section 1 how cyclical preferences can arise. In section 2, I relate preference to judgments of choiceworthiness and distinguish between two kinds of preference cycles, vicious and benign. In section 3, I run through the standard money pump in order to show, in section 4, how this pump can be stopped by foresight, using backward induction. A new money pump that *cannot* be stopped by foresight is presented in section 5. This pump works even for agents with benign cyclical preferenc…Read more
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22Better to be than not to be?In Hans Joas & Barbro Klein (eds.), The Benefit of Broad Horizons: Intellectual and Institutional Preconditions for a Global Social Science. International comparative social studies (24), Brill. pp. 399-421. 2010.
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22Presumption of equality as a requirement of fairnessIn , . 2011.in Undetermined Presumption of Equality enjoins that individuals be treated equally in the absence of discriminating information. My objective in this paper is to make this principle more precise, viewing it as a norm of fairness, in order to determine why and under what conditions it should be obeyed. Presumption norms are procedural constraints, but their justification might come from the expected outcomes of the procedures they regulate. This outcome-oriented approach to fairness is pursued i…Read more
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22EditorialEthical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (4): 327-328. 2009.Special Issue: Value Theory / Guest edited by Kevin Mulligan & Wlodek Rabinowicz.
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22Backward induction has been the standard method of solving finite extensive-form games with perfect information, notwithstanding the fact that this procedure leads to counter-intuitive results in various games. However, beginning in the late eighties, the method of backward induction became an object of criticism. It is claimed that the assumptions needed for its defence are quite implausible, if not incoherent. It is therefore natural to ask for the justification of backward induction: Can one …Read more
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21Ryberg’s Doubts About Higher and Lower Pleasures –Put to Rest?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (2). 2003.
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21The Interference Problem for the Betting InterpretetationSynthese. 2012.in Undetermined On an influential interpretation, the agent's degrees of belief asr identified with her betting rates. However, being placed in a betting situation can itself change one’s degree of belief in the proposition in question. The problem as such isn’t new. Ramsey, for example, was right on to this idea when he wrote: "… the proposal of a bet may inevitably alter [one’s] state of opinion; just as we could not always measure electric intensity by actually introducing a charge and seeing…Read more
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21The goal of this paper is to consider how the notion of analyticity can be dealt with in model-theoretical terms. The standard approach to possible-world semantics allows us to define logical truth and necessity, but analyticity is considerably more difficult to account for.
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21Ethics Discussions at PEA Soup: Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen on SchroederEthics at PEA Soup. 2012.Invited Critical Précis of Mark Schroeder’s “The Ubiquity of State-Given Reasons”
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21(Hard ernst) corrigendum Van Brakel, J., philosophy of chemistry (u. klein)Erkenntnis 57 (1): 91-122. 2002.It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on…Read more
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20On millian discontinuitiesIn Wlodek Rabinowicz & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen (eds.), Patterns of Value - Essays on Formal Axiology and Value Analysis, Lund University Department of Philosophy. 2003.Suppose one sets up a sequence of less-and-less valuable objects such that each object in the sequence is only marginally worse than its immediate predecessor. Could one in this way arrive at something that is dramatically inferior to the point of departure? It has been claimed that if there is a radical value difference between the objects at each end of the sequence, then at some point there must be a corresponding radical difference between the adjacent elements. The underlying picture seems …Read more
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20Value relations: old wine in new barrelsIn Anne Reboul (ed.), Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Kevin Mulligan, . 2011.In Rabinowicz 2008, I considered how value relations can best be analyzed in terms of fitting pro-‐attitudes. In the formal model presented in that paper fitting pro-‐attitudes are represented by the class of permissible preference orderings on a domain of items that are being compared. As it turns out, this approach opens up for a multiplicity of different types of value relationships, along with the standard relations of "better", "worse", "equally as good as" and "incomparable in value". Un…Read more
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20Appendix: The jury theorem and the discursive dilemmaPhilosophical Issues 11 (1): 295-299. 2001.
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19Can Parfit’s Appeal to Incommensurabilities Block the Continuum Argument for the Repugnant Conclusion?In Paul Bowman & Katharina Berndt Rasmussen (eds.), Studies on Climate Ethics and Future Generations, Vol. 1, Institute For Futures Studies. 2019.
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18Democratic answers to complex questions: an epistemic perspectiveSynthese 10 223-251. 2010.This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is better as a t…Read more
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16Value and Choice Some Common Themes in Decision Theory and Moral Philosophy (edited book)Lund Universitetstrycheriet. 2000.
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15Presumption of equalityIn Martin Jönsson (ed.), Proceedings of the 2008 Lund-Rutgers Conference. Lund Philosophy Reports, . pp. 109-155. 2008.Presumption of Equality requires that individuals be treated equally in the absence of relevant information that would discriminate between them. Our objective is to make this principle more precise, if viewed as a principle of fairness, and to determine why and under what conditions it should be obeyed. Presumption norms are procedural constraints, but their justification can be sought in the possible or expected outcomes of the procedures they regulate. This is the avenue pursued here. The sug…Read more
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15In the standard money pump, an agent with cyclical preferences can avoid exploitation if he shows foresight and solves his sequential decision problem using backward induction. This way out is foreclosed in a modified money pump, which has been presented in Rabinowicz. There, BI will lead the agent to behave in a self-defeating way. The present paper describes another sequential decision problem of this kind, the Centipede for an Intransitive Preferrer, which in some respects is even more striki…Read more
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15If in doubt, treat’em equally: a case study in the application of formal methods to ethicsIn Tadeusz Czarnecki, Katarzyna Kijania-Placek, Olga Pollr & Jan Wolenski (eds.), The Analytical Way: Proceedings of the 6th European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, . pp. 219-243. 2010.Presumption of Equality requires that individuals be treated equally in the absence of relevant information that would discriminate between them. Our objective is to make this principle more precise, if viewed as a principle of fairness, and to determine why and under what conditions it should be obeyed. Presumption norms are procedural constraints, but their justification can be sought in the possible or expected outcomes of the procedures they regulate. This is the avenue pursued here. The sug…Read more
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15Letters from long ago: on causal decision theory and centered chancesIn Lars-Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg & Rysiek Sliwinski (eds.), Logic, Ethics and All That Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel, . pp. 247-273. 2009.This paper argues that expected utility theory for actions in chancy environments should be formulated in terms of centered chances. The subjective expected utility of an option A may be seen as a weighted sum of the utilities of A in different possible worlds, with weights being the credences that the agent assigns to these worlds. The utility of A in a given world is then definable as a weighted sum of the values of A’s different possible outcomes, with weights being the conditional chances of…Read more
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14Sten Lindström in memoriamTheoria 88 (3): 487-490. 2022.Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 3, Page 487-490, June 2022.
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14Patterns of Value- Essays on Formal Axiology and Value Analysis, vol. 2Department of Philosophy, Lund University. 2004.Discussions about values are common in many contexts. Often, what is debated is the choice of means to realize or protect various values, but sometimes the discussion concerns the very values that ought to be realized or protected. Philosophical debate in this area has mainly been focused on two kinds of issues. Philosophers have tried to identify the set of fundamental values, i.e., to provide what might be called a substantive axiology, but they have also aimed to clarify the general conceptua…Read more
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