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46Utilitarianism, Degressive Proportionality and the Constitution of a Federal AssemblyPhilSci Archive 1. 2001.A federal assembly consists of a number of representatives for each of the nations (states, Länder, cantons,...) that make up the federation. How many representatives should each nation receive? What makes this issue worth quibbling about is that the model of representation that is instituted will have an impact on the welfare distribution over the nations in the federation that will ensue over due course. We will investigate what models of representation yield welfare distributions that score h…Read more
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44Does it Matter whether a Miracle-Like Event Happens to Oneself rather than to Someone Else?In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press. pp. 64-75. 2012.Let a miracle-like event be an event that is seemingly indicative of the existence of an all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful being, and yet might occur in a naturalistic world, though this would be very improbable. Suppose that a third-person report is equally as reliable as a first-person experience of such a miracle-like event — which avoids Hume’s objection to the evidential value of reports of miracles. The question addressed in this chapter is: Is it the case that, under the assumption o…Read more
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44Complex collective decisions: an epistemic perspectiveAssociations: Journal for Social and Legal Theory 7 (X). 2004.Suppose a committee or a jury confronts a complex question, the answer to which requires attending to several sub-questions. Two different voting procedures can be used. On one, the committee members vote on each sub-question and the voting results are used as premises for the committee’s conclusion on the main issue. This premise-based procedure can be contrasted with the conclusion-based approach, which requires the members to directly vote on the conclusion, with the vote of each member being…Read more
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38De verantwoordelijkheid van de overheid ten aanzien van gedragssturende beleidsinstrumenten voor verduurzamingDuurzame Gedragspatronen. Essays. Ethische Aspecten van Gedragsbeinvloeding Door de Overheid Voor Verduurzaming van de Samenleving. 2013.I discuss ethical aspects of behavioural policies in domestic energy usage, recycling, food waste and transportation.
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35BLOG: Greece, Portugal, Spain and the East European states take on less than their fair share of responsibility for EU asylum seekersLSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog (xx). 2013.One of the stated aims of the “2008 Policy Plan on Asylum” by the European Commission is increased ‘responsibility sharing’ between Member States with respect to asylum seekers. Luc Bovens and Günperi Sisman assess the extent to which UNHCR outcome data reflect these aims between 2006 and 2011 – from the end of the first phase of the Common European Asylum System until the latest available data. They find that Greece, Portugal and Spain take on very low responsibility for asylum seekers per capi…Read more
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34Democratic answers to complex questions: an epistemic perspectiveIn Matti Sintonen (ed.), The Socratic Tradition: Questioning as Philosophy and as Method. Texts in philosophy, College Publications. 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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34Welfare, Voting and the Constitution of a Federal AssemblyIn Maria-Carla Galavotti (ed.), Reasoning, Rationality and Probability, Csli Publications. 2006.Equal and proportional representation are two poles of a continuum of models of representation for the assembly of a federation of states. The choice of a model has repercussions on the welfare distribution in the federation. We determine, first by means of Monte Carlo simulations, what welfare distributions result after assemblies that were constituted on the basis of different models of representation have considered a large number of motions. We assess what model of representation is favored …Read more
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32A Probabilistic Theory of the Coherence of an Information SetIn Beckermann Ansgar (ed.), Argument & Analysis: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Society for Analytical Philosophy, Bielefeld. 2001.Bonjour (1985: 101 and 1999: 124) and other coherence theorists of justification before him (e.g. Ewing, 1934: 246) have complained that we do not have a satisfactory analysis of the notion of coherence. The problem with existing accounts of coherence is that they try to bring precision to our intuitive notion of coherence independently of the particular role that it is meant to play within the coherence theory of justification (e.g Lewis, 1946: 338). This is a mistake: it does not make any …Read more
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31The future variant of Moore's paradoxIn Jaakko Hintikka (ed.), The British Tradition in 20th Century Philosophy: Proceedings of the 17th International Wittgenstein-Symposium, Hölder-pichler-tempsky. 1995.I provide a taxonomy of the various circumstances under which one might reasonably say "P and I will believe that not-P" or violate the Reflection Principle
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29BLOG: The Last Hope Part 2: Dying Well and a World Without MeLse Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Blog. 2017.In the second part of this series, Luc Bovens looks at a good death and a future without oneself.
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28BLOG: Why the Refugee Quota System is Unfair on Poorer Eastern and Southern EU StatesLSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog. 2015.EU states agreed on 23 September to implement a refugee quota system which will distribute 120,000 refugees across the EU, despite four member states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia – voting against the proposal. Luc Bovens and Anna Bartsch write that regardless of the wider debate over whether a quota system is justified or not, it is vital that the ‘distribution key’ determining how many refugees are assigned to each state is fair. They argue that the distribution key propo…Read more
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28Refugee Quotas across the EU: A More Reasonable Distribution Key for Refugee QuotasVoxEurop Blog. 2016.The European Commission’s distribution key for refugees across the EU is wanting in many respects. Two LSE researchers defend an alternative key based on pragmatic and realistic criteria. The outcome is sometimes surprising.
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27The preface, the lottery, and the logic of beliefMind 108 (430): 241-264. 1999.John Locke proposed a straightforward relationship between qualitative and quantitative doxastic notions: belief corresponds to a sufficiently high degree of confidence. Richard Foley has further developed this Lockean thesis and applied it to an analysis of the preface and lottery paradoxes. Following Foley's lead, we exploit various versions of these paradoxes to chart a precise relationship between belief and probabilistic degrees of confidence. The resolutions of these paradoxes emphasize di…Read more
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25A Power Measure Analysis of Amendment 36 in ColoradoPublic Choice 134. 2008.Colorado’s Amendment 36 proposed to switch Colorado’s representation in the Electoral College from winner-takes-all to proportionality. We evaluate unilateral and uniform switches to proportionality both from Colorado’s perspective and from an impartial perspective on the basis of a priori and a posteriori voting power measures. The present system is to be preferred to a unilateral switch from any perspective on any measure. A uniform switch is to be preferred to the present system from Colorado…Read more
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24Measuring common standards and equal responsibility sharing in EU asylum outcome dataEuropean Union Politics 13 (1): 70-93. 2012.We construct novel measures to assess (i) the extent to which European Union member states are using common standards in recognizing asylum seekers and (ii) the extent to which the responsibilities for asylum applications, acceptances and refugee populations are equally shared among the member states, taking into account population size, gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP expressed in purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP). We track the progression of these measures since the implementation of the …Read more
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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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22A Lockean Defence of Grandfathering Emission RightsIn Denis G. Arnold (ed.), The Ethics of Global Climate Change, Cambridge University Press. pp. 124-44. 2010.A core issue in the debate over what constitutes a fair response to climate change is the appropriate allocation of emission rights between the developed and the developing world. Various parties have defended equal emission rights per capita on grounds of equity. The atmosphere belongs to us all and everyone should be allocated an equal share. Others have defended higher emission rights per capita for developing countries on grounds of historical accountability. Developed countries are largely …Read more
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22BLOG: Gender-neutral restrooms require new (choice) architectureBehavioural Public Policy Blog Post. 2018.We investigate what nudging techniques could increase the acceptance of gender-neutral restrooms.
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22The Reflection Principle and the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle in Anna Mahtani’s Objects of CredenceEconomics and Philosophy 1-7. forthcoming.First, Mahtani argues that both in the game The Mug and in the Sleeping Beauty we should not defer to a trusted person under a particular designation if they do not self-identify under this designation. This invites a more complex Reflection Principle. I respond that there are more parsimonious ways to avoid the challenges posed to the Reflection Principle. Second, Mahtani argues that preferences create a hyperintensional context, which poses a challenge to the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle that can …Read more
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20Coping - a Philosophical Guide (with Illustrations by Fiorella Lavado)Open Book Publishers. 2021.*Coping* is a collection of philosophical essays on how we deal with life’s challenges. We hope for better times, but what is hope, and is it a good thing to hope? How do we look back and make sense of our lives in the face of death? What is the nature of love, and how do we deal with its hardships? What makes for a genuine apology, and is there too much or too little apologizing in this world? Can we bring about changes in ourselves to adapt to our circumstances? How can we make sense of all th…Read more
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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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16Belief expansion, contextual fit and the reliability of information sourcesIn Varol Akman (ed.), Modeling and Using Context, . pp. 421-424. 2001.We develop a probabilistic criterion for belief expansion that is sensitive to the degree of contextual fit of the new information to our belief set as well as to the reliability of our information source. We contrast our approach with the success postulate in AGM-style belief revision and show how the idealizations in our approach can be relaxed by invoking Bayesian-Network models.
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15Bayesianische Erkenntnistheoriementis. 2006.Wann ist Kohärenz ein Indiz für Wahrheit? Können Informationsmengen immer entsprechend ihrer Kohärenz geordnet werden? Welche Rolle spielt Kohärenz bei der Theoriewahl in der Wissenschaft? Unter welchen Umständen kann eine wissenschaftliche Theorie mit nur teilweise zuverlässigen Messinstrumenten bestätigt werden? Ist die Belegvielfaltsthese wahr? Warum sind übereinstimmende Aussagen unabhängiger Zeugen so gewichtig? Dies sind einige der Fragen, die in diesem Buch in einem wahrscheinlichkeitsthe…Read more
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13Measuring the Impact of PhilosophyHouse of Commons - Select Committee - Science and Technology. 2009.
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12Four Structures of Intransitive PreferencesIn Routledge Handbook of Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Routledge. forthcoming.I taxonomize a half-century of examples of intransitive preferences into four structures: (i) Cycles of Negligible-Value-Differences and Missing-Values; (ii) Condorcet-Voting-Paradox Style Cycles (iii) Sen’s-Libertarian-Paradox Style Cycles; and (iv) Sorites Cycles.
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12BLOG: The Last Hope Part 3: AttitudesLse Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. 2017.How do you hope to be thought of after you die? In his final post in this series, Luc Bovens looks at attitudes towards the dead.
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11The tragedy of the commons as a voting gameIn Martin Peterson (ed.), The Prisoner's Dilemma, . pp. 156-176. 2015.
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10Rawls on mutual disinterest and Hume's subjective circumstances of justiceArchiv für Rechts- Und Sozialphilosophie 80 203-207. 1994.
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10Sequential counterfactuals, cotenability and temporal becomingIn Timothy Childress, Petr Kolar & Vladimir Svoboda (eds.), Logica '96 : Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium, Filosofía. pp. 41-53. 1997.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Economics |
Moral Psychology |
Formal Epistemology |
Epistemic Paradoxes |