Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
  •  145
    Modularity and the causal Markov condition: A restatement
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (1): 147-161. 2004.
    expose some gaps and difficulties in the argument for the causal Markov condition in our essay ‘Independence, Invariance and the Causal Markov Condition’ ([1999]), and we are grateful for the opportunity to reformulate our position. In particular, Cartwright disagrees vigorously with many of the theses we advance about the connection between causation and manipulation. Although we are not persuaded by some of her criticisms, we shall confine ourselves to showing how our central argument can be r…Read more
  •  821
    There are simple mechanical systems that elude causal representation. We describe one that cannot be represented in a single directed acyclic graph. Our case suggests limitations on the use of causal graphs for causal inference and makes salient the point that causal relations among variables depend upon details of causal setups, including values of variables.
  •  51
    Linking causal and explanatory asymmetry
    Philosophy of Science 60 (3): 435-451. 1993.
    This essay defends two theses that jointly establish a link between causal and explanatory asymmetry. The first thesis is that statements specifying facts about effects, unlike statements specifying facts about causes, are not "independently variable". The second thesis is that independent variability among purportedly explanatory factors is a necessary condition on scientific explanations
  •  68
    Many questions concerning health involve values. How well is a health system performing? How should resources be allocated between the health system and other uses or among competing healthrelated uses? How should the costs of health services be distributed among members of a population? Who among those in need of transplants should receive scarce organs? What is the best way to treat particular patients? Although many kinds of expertise bear on these questions, values play a large role in answe…Read more
  •  223
    Hedonism and welfare economics
    Economics and Philosophy 26 (3): 321-344. 2010.
    This essay criticizes the proposal recently defended by a number of prominent economists that welfare economics be redirected away from the satisfaction of people's preferences and toward making people happy instead. Although information about happiness may sometimes be of use, the notion of happiness is sufficiently ambiguous and the objections to identifying welfare with happiness are sufficiently serious that welfare economists are better off using preference satisfaction as a measure of welf…Read more
  •  52
    Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis want to redirect egalitarianism away from redistribution of income and toward redistribution of assets, particularly productive assets. <1> Their main reason, apart from the fact that income redistribution is so obviously dead in the political waters, is that income redistribution lowers productivity and competitiveness, while asset redistribution raises these, and in the long run the welfare of the worst-off depends more on increasing productivity than it does o…Read more
  •  44
    [Book review] economic analysis and moral philosophy (review)
    with Michael S. McPherson
    Ethics 109 (1): 198-200. 1998.
  •  45
    Protecting groups from genetic research
    Bioethics 22 (3). 2008.
    ABSTRACT Genetics research, like research in sociology and anthropology, creates risks for groups from which research subjects are drawn. This paper considers what sort of protection for groups from the risks of genetics research should be provided and by whom. The paper categorizes harms by distinguishing process‐related from outcome‐related harms and by distinguishing two kinds of group harms. It argues that calls for community engagement are justified with respect to some kinds of harms, but …Read more
  •  29
    A reply to Lehtinen, Teschl and Pattanaik
    Journal of Economic Methodology 20 (2): 219-223. 2013.
  •  10
  •  1
    Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy
    with Michael S. Mcpherson
    Mind 109 (434): 370-373. 2000.
  •  1
    Capital, Profits, and Prices: An Essay in the Philosophy of Economics
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (4): 387-392. 1983.
  •  18
    Liberalism, Welfare Economics, and Freedom*: DANIEL M. HAUSMAN
    Social Philosophy and Policy 10 (2): 172-197. 1993.
    With the collapse of the centrally controlled economies and the authoritarian governments of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, political leaders are, with appreciable public support, espousing “liberal” economic and political transformations—the reinstitution of markets, the securing of civil and political rights, and the establishment of representative governments. But those supporting reform have many aims, and the liberalism to which they look for political guidance is not an un…Read more
  •  120
    Sympathy, commitment, and preference
    Economics and Philosophy 21 (1): 33-50. 2005.
    While very much in Sen's camp in rejecting revealed preference theory and emphasizing the complexity, incompleteness, and context dependence of preference and the intellectual costs of supposing that all the factors influencing choice can be captured by a single notion of preference, this essay contests his view that economists should recognize multiple notions of preference. It argues that Sen's concerns are better served by embracing a single conception of preference and insisting on the need …Read more
  •  35
    Is falsificationism unpractised or unpractisable?
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 15 (3): 313-319. 1985.
  •  132
    Rational choice and social theory: A comment
    Journal of Philosophy 92 (2): 96-102. 1995.
  •  80
    Valuing Health
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (3): 246-274. 2006.
  •  83
    an unpublished paper written in 1998-1999.
  •  338
    Preference satisfaction and welfare economics
    Economics and Philosophy 25 (1): 1-25. 2009.
    The tenuous claims of cost-benefit analysis to guide policy so as to promote welfare turn on measuring welfare by preference satisfaction and taking willingness-to-pay to indicate preferences. Yet it is obvious that people's preferences are not always self-interested and that false beliefs may lead people to prefer what is worse for them even when people are self-interested. So welfare is not preference satisfaction, and hence it appears that cost-benefit analysis and welfare economics in genera…Read more
  •  5
    Book Review (review)
    Economics and Philosophy 20 (1): 240-246. 2004.
  •  31
    The insufficiency of nomological explanation
    Philosophical Quarterly 39 (154): 22-35. 1989.
    I argue that one cannot analyze scientific explanations adequately only in terms of logical relations among true propositions, Including natural laws. No pure conditional analysis of causation is possible either. I suggest that any adequate analysis of causation or explanation must bring in other factors such as time ordering or manipulability. David sanford's views are considered at length
  •  12
    Explanatory Progress in Economics
    Social Research: An International Quarterly 56. 1989.