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27New Technologies Should not be Treated as Social ExperimentsEthics, Policy and Environment 16 (3): 346-348. 2013.Van de Poel argues that nuclear power should be treated as an ongoing social experiment that needs to be continuously monitored and evaluated. In his reports (2009; Jacobs, Van de Poel, & Os...
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47Jonathan Dancy, ethics without principles oxford university press 2004, 229 pp. isbn 0199270023 (review)Theoria 72 (2): 162-165. 2006.
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137From Consequentialism to UtilitarianismJournal of Philosophy 100 (8): 403-415. 2003.In this article, we show that total act utilitarianism can be derived from a set of axioms that are (or ought to be) acceptable for anyone subscribing to the basic ideals of consequentialism.
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51Order-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
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47Indeterminate PreferencesPhilosophical Studies 130 (2): 297-320. 2006.It is commonly assumed that preferences are determinate; that is, that an agent who has a preference knows that she has the preference in question and is disposed to act upon it. This paper argues the dubiousness of that assumption. An account of indeterminate preferences in terms of self-predicting subjective probabilities is given, and a decision rule for choices involving indeterminate preferences is proposed. Wolfgang Spohn’s and Isaac Levi ’s arguments against self-predicting probabilities …Read more
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177A Royal Road to Consequentialism?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (2): 153-169. 2010.To consequentialise a moral theory means to account for moral phenomena usually described in nonconsequentialist terms, such as rights, duties, and virtues, in a consequentialist framework. This paper seeks to show that all moral theories can be consequentialised. The paper distinguishes between different interpretations of the consequentialiser’s thesis, and emphasises the need for a cardinal ranking of acts. The paper also offers a new answer as to why consequentialising moral theories is impo…Read more
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123The Role of Non-Epistemic Values in Engineering ModelsScience and Engineering Ethics 19 (1): 207-218. 2013.We argue that non-epistemic values, including moral ones, play an important role in the construction and choice of models in science and engineering. Our main claim is that non-epistemic values are not only “secondary values” that become important just in case epistemic values leave some issues open. Our point is, on the contrary, that non-epistemic values are as important as epistemic ones when engineers seek to develop the best model of a process or problem. The upshot is that models are neith…Read more
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68Nuclear Power is Neither Right Nor Wrong: The Case for a Tertium Datur in the Ethics of TechnologyScience and Engineering Ethics 20 (2): 583-595. 2014.The debate over the civilian use of nuclear power is highly polarised. We argue that a reasonable response to this deep disagreement is to maintain that advocates of both camps should modify their positions. According to the analysis we propose, nuclear power is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, but rather right and wrong to some degree. We are aware that this non-binary analysis of nuclear power is controversial from a theoretical point of view. Utilitarians, Kantians, and other moral …Read more
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620On the Epistemology of the Precautionary Principle: Reply to Steglich-PetersenErkenntnis 81 (2): 297-304. 2016.In a recent paper in this journal, we proposed two novel puzzles associated with the precautionary principle. Both are puzzles that materialise, we argue, once we investigate the principle through an epistemological lens, and each constitutes a philosophical hurdle for any proponent of a plausible version of the precautionary principle. Steglich-Petersen claims, also in this journal, that he has resolved our puzzles. In this short note, we explain why we remain skeptical
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742The modal account of luck revisitedSynthese 194 (6): 2175-2184. 2017.According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck [e.g. Pritchard (2005)], an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant conditions for that event are the same as in the actual world. This paper argues, with reference to a novel variety of counterexample, that it is a mistake to focus, when assessing a given event for luckiness, on events distributed over just the nearest possible worl…Read more
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23The Ethics of Technology: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral PrinciplesOxford University Press. 2017.In this analytically oriented work, Peterson articulates and defends five moral principles for addressing ethical issues related to new and existing technologies: the cost-benefit principle, the precautionary principle, the sustainability principle, the autonomy principle, and the fairness principle.
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65From outcomes to acts: A non-standard axiomatization of the expected utility principleJournal of Philosophical Logic 33 (4): 361-378. 2004.This paper presents an axiomatization of the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the independence axiom or sure-thing principle. Perhaps more importantly the new axiomatization is based on an ex ante approach, instead of the standard ex post approach. An ex post approach utilizes the decision maker's preferences among risky acts for generating a utility and a probability function, whereas in the ex ante approach a set of preferences among potential outcomes are on the …Read more
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299An introduction to decision theoryCambridge University Press. 2009.This up-to-date introduction to decision theory offers comprehensive and accessible discussions of decision-making under ignorance and risk, the foundations of utility theory, the debate over subjective and objective probability, Bayesianism, causal decision theory, game theory, and social choice theory. No mathematical skills are assumed, and all concepts and results are explained in non-technical and intuitive as well as more formal ways. There are over 100 exercises with solutions, and a glos…Read more
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349Why virtual friendship is no genuine friendshipEthics and Information Technology 14 (3): 201-207. 2012.Based on a modern reading of Aristotle’s theory of friendship, we argue that virtual friendship does not qualify as genuine friendship. By ‘virtual friendship’ we mean the type of friendship that exists on the internet, and seldom or never is combined with real life interaction. A ‘traditional friendship’ is, in contrast, the type of friendship that involves substantial real life interaction, and we claim that only this type can merit the label ‘genuine friendship’ and thus qualify as morally va…Read more
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115Virtuous Choice and ParityEthical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (1): 71-82. 2012.This article seeks to contribute to the discussion on the nature of choice in virtue theory. If several different actions are available to the virtuous agent, they are also likely to vary in their degree of virtue, at least in some situations. Yet, it is widely agreed that once an action is recognised as virtuous there is no higher level of virtue. In this paper we discuss how the virtue theorist could accommodate both these seemingly conflicting ideas. We discuss this issue from a modern Aristo…Read more
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116Parity, clumpiness and rational choiceUtilitas 19 (4): 505-513. 2007.Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central premise of the argument is that value is choice-guidi…Read more
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160Equality 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
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65An argument for the principle of maximizing expected utilityTheoria 68 (2): 112-128. 2002.The main result of this paper is a formal argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the law of large numbers. Unlike the well-known arguments by Savage and von Neumann & Morgenstern, this argument does not presuppose the sure-thing principle or the independence axiom. The principal idea is to use the concept of transformative decision rules for decomposing the principle of maximizing expected utility into a sequence of normatively reasonable subrules. It is …Read more
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121The Dimensions of Consequentialism: Ethics, Equality and RiskCambridge University Press. 2013.Consequentialism, one of the major theories of normative ethics, maintains that the moral rightness of an act is determined solely by the act's consequences and its alternatives. The traditional form of consequentialism is one-dimensional, in that the rightness of an act is a function of a single moral aspect, such as the sum total of wellbeing it produces. In this book Martin Peterson introduces a new type of consequentialist theory: multidimensional consequentialism. According to this theory, …Read more
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64Multi-dimensional consequentialismRatio 25 (2): 177-194. 2012.This article introduces and explores a distinction between multi-dimensional and one-dimensional consequentialist moral theories. One-dimensional consequentialists believe that an act's deontic status depends on just one aspect of the act, such as the sum total of wellbeing it produces, or the sum total of priority- or equality-adjusted wellbeing. Multi-dimensional consequentialists believe that an act's deontic status depends on more than one aspect. They may, for instance, believe that the sum…Read more
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267A New Twist to the St. Petersburg ParadoxJournal of Philosophy 108 (12): 697-699. 2011.In this paper I add a new twist to Colyvan's version of the Petrograd paradox.
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80Pure time preferencePacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (4): 490-508. 2011.Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and this makes it plausible to claim that the p…Read more
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28What is the Point of Thinking of New Technologies as Social Experiments?Ethics, Policy and Environment 20 (1): 78-83. 2017.In this paper I respond to van de Poel’s claim that new technologies should be conceived as ongoing social experiments, which is an idea originally introduced by Schinzinger and Martin in the 1970s. I discuss and criticize three possible motivations for thinking of new technologies as ongoing social experiments.
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17Review of Paul Weirich, Collective Rationality: Equilibrium in Cooperative Games (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (7). 2010.
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105The Mixed Solution to the Number ProblemJournal of Moral Philosophy 6 (2): 166-177. 2009.You must either save a group of m people or a group of n people. If there are no morally relevant diff erences among the people, which group should you save? is problem is known as the number problem. e recent discussion has focussed on three proposals: (i) Save the greatest number of people, (ii) Toss a fair coin, or (iii) Set up a weighted lottery, in which the probability of saving m people is m / m + n , and the probability of saving n people is n / m + n . is contribution examines a fourth …Read more
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523A Computer Simulation of the Argument from DisagreementSynthese 184 (3): 387-405. 2012.In this paper we shed new light on the Argument from Disagreement by putting it to test in a computer simulation. According to this argument widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by any moral facts, either because no such facts exist or because they are epistemically inaccessible or inefficacious for some other reason. Our simulation shows that if our moral opinions were influenced at least a little bit by moral facts, we wo…Read more
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131Not Knowing a Cat is a Cat: Analyticity and Knowledge AscriptionsReview of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (4): 817-834. 2016.It is a natural assumption in mainstream epistemological theory that ascriptions of knowledge of a proposition p track strength of epistemic position vis-à-vis p. It is equally natural to assume that the strength of one’s epistemic position is maximally high in cases where p concerns a simple analytic truth. For instance, it seems reasonable to suppose that one’s epistemic position vis-à-vis “a cat is a cat” is harder to improve than one’s position vis-à-vis “a cat is on the mat”, and consequent…Read more
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84Theory of decision under uncertainty , itzak Gilboa. Cambridge university press, 2009. XIV + 215 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 26 (2): 254-258. 2010.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Alumnus, 2003
College Station, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Technology Ethics |
Consequentialism |
Decision-Theoretic Frameworks |
St. Petersburg Paradox |