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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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64An 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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120The 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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63Multi-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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519A 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
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 |