-
24What is technological science?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38 (3): 523-527. 2007.The technological sciences have at least six defining characteristics that distinguish them from the other sciences. They have human-made rather than natural objects as their study objects, include the practice of engineering design, define their study objects in functional terms, evaluate these study objects with category-specified value statements, employ less far-reaching idealizations than the natural sciences, and do not need an exact mathematical solution when a sufficiently close approxim…Read more
-
9Understanding Technological Function Introduction to the special issue on the Dual Nature programmeTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 6 (2): 87-92. 2002.
-
46Bioethics in SwedenCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 15 (3): 285-293. 2006.Sweden is probably one of the most secularized nations in the world. Therefore religious arguments tend to play a smaller role in the public bioethical debate than in most other countries. Issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and therapeutic cloning have been far less controversial in Sweden than elsewhere. Instead, other issues have dominated recent bioethical debates in Sweden, in particular those concerning privacy and the control over biological information about individuals
-
161Equality and priorityUtilitas 17 (3): 299-309. 2005.This article argues that, contrary to the received view, prioritarianism and egalitarianism are not jointly incompatible theories in normative ethics. By introducing a distinction between weighing and aggregating, the authors show that the seemingly conflicting intuitions underlying prioritarianism and egalitarianism are consistent. The upshot is a combined position, equality-prioritarianism, which takes both prioritarian and egalitarian considerations into account in a technically precise manne…Read more
-
67Uncertainty and ControlDiametros 53 50-59. 2017.In a decision making context, an agent’s uncertainty can be either epistemic, i.e. due to her lack of knowledge, or agentive, i.e. due to her not having made use of her decision-making power. In cases when it is unclear whether or not a decision maker presently has control over her own future actions, it is difficult to determine whether her uncertainty is epistemic or agentive. Such situations are often difficult for the agent to deal with, but from an outsider’s perspective, they can have sens…Read more
-
22Three Bioethical Debates in SwedenCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 17 (3): 261-269. 2008.Three of the bioethical issues recently discussed in Sweden appear to be particularly interesting also to an international audience. A new law allowing restrictive use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis /human leukocyte antigen () has been implemented, a new recommendation for the cessation of life-sustaining treatment has been issued, and the scope of individual responsibility for medical mistakes has been rather thoroughly discussed
-
65Implant ethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 31 (9): 519-525. 2005.Implant ethics is defined here as the study of ethical aspects of the lasting introduction of technological devices into the human body. Whereas technological implants relieve us of some of the ethical problems connected with transplantation, other difficulties arise that are in need of careful analysis. A systematic approach to implant ethics is proposed. The major specific problems are identified as those concerning end of life issues (turning off devices), enhancement of human capabilities be…Read more
-
21Moral and Instrumental Norms in Food Risk CommunicationJournal of Business Ethics 101 (2). 2011.The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration. (4) When possible, quantify risks. (5) Describe and explain uncertainties. (6) Take all the public's concerns into account. (7) Take the rights of individuals and groups seriously. We show that each…Read more
-
44Welfare, Justice, and Pareto EfficiencyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (4): 361-380. 2004.In economic analysis, it is usually assumed that each individuals well-being (mental welfare) depends on her or his own resources (material welfare). A typology is provided of the ways in which one persons well-being may depend on the material resources of other persons. When such dependencies are taken into account, standard Paretian analysis of welfare needs to be modified. Pareto efficiency on the level of material resources need not coincide with Pareto efficiency on the level of well-being.…Read more
-
22Levi Contractions and AGM Contractions: A ComparisonNotre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 36 (1): 103-119. 1995.A representation theorem is obtained for contraction operators that are based on Levi's recent proposal that selection functions should be applied to the set of saturatable contractions, rather than to maximal subsets as in the AGM framework. Furthermore, it is shown that Levi's proposal to base the selection on a weakly monotonic measure of informational value guarantees the satisfaction of both of Gärdenfors' supplementary postulates for contraction. These results indicate that Levi has succee…Read more
-
24Order-Independent Transformative Decision RulesSynthese 147 (2): 323-342. 2005.A transformative decision rule alters the representation of a decision problem, either by changing the set of alternative acts or the set of states of the world taken into consideration, or by modifying the probability or value assignments. A set of transformative decision rules is order-independent in case the order in which the rules are applied is irrelevant. The main result of this paper is an axiomatic characterization of order-independent transformative decision rules, based on a single ax…Read more
-
29Understanding Technological Function Introduction to the special issue on the Dual Nature programmeTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 6 (2): 87-92. 2002.
-
34Extended antipaternalismJournal of Medical Ethics 31 (2): 97-100. 2005.Extended antipaternalism means the use of antipaternalist arguments to defend activities that harm (consenting) others. As an example, a smoker’s right to smoke is often invoked in defence of the activities of tobacco companies. It can, however, be shown that antipaternalism in the proper sense does not imply such extended antipaternalism. We may therefore approve of Mill’s antipaternalist principle (namely, that the only reason to interfere with someone’s behaviour is to protect others from har…Read more
-
58What is ceteris paribus preference?Journal of Philosophical Logic 25 (3). 1996.A general format is introduced for deriving preferences over states of affairs from preferences over a set of contextually complete alternatives. Formal results are given both for this general format and for a specific instance of it that is a plausible explication of ceteris paribus preference
-
74Safety is more than the antonym of riskJournal of Applied Philosophy 23 (4). 2006.abstract Even though much research has been devoted to studies of safety, the concept of safety is in itself under‐theorised, especially concerning its relation to epistemic uncertainty. In this paper we propose a conceptual analysis of safety. The paper explores the distinc‐tion between absolute and relative safety, as well as that between objective and subjective safety. Four potential dimensions of safety are discussed, viz. harm, probability, epistemic uncertainty, and control. The first thr…Read more
-
163The Harmful Influence of Decision Theory on EthicsEthical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (5): 585-593. 2010.In the last half century, decision theory has had a deep influence on moral theory. Its impact has largely been beneficial. However, it has also given rise to some problems, two of which are discussed here. First, issues such as risk-taking and risk imposition have been left out of ethics since they are believed to belong to decision theory, and consequently the ethical aspects of these issues have not been treated in either discipline. Secondly, ethics has adopted the decision-theoretical idea …Read more
-
41The modes of valuePhilosophical Studies 104 (1). 2001.Contrary to the received view, decision theory is not primarily devoted to instrumental (ends-to-means) reasoning. Instead, its major preoccupation is the derivation of ends from other ends. Given preferences over basic alternatives, it constructs preferences over alternatives that have been modified through the addition of value object modifiers (modes) that specify probability, uncertainty, distance in time etc. A typology of the decision-theoretical modes is offered. The modes do not have (ev…Read more
-
87Uncertainty and the ethics of clinical trialsTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 27 (2): 149-167. 2006.A probabilistic explication is offered of equipoise and uncertainty in clinical trials. In order to be useful in the justification of clinical trials, equipoise has to be interpreted in terms of overlapping probability distributions of possible treatment outcomes, rather than point estimates representing expectation values. Uncertainty about treatment outcomes is shown to be a necessary but insufficient condition for the ethical defensibility of clinical trials. Additional requirements are propo…Read more
Areas of Specialization
13 more
Areas of Interest
13 more