-
175Rawls on mutual disinterest and Hume's subjective circumstances of justiceArchiv Fuer Rechts- Und Sozialphilosophie 80 (2): 203-207. 1994.It is important in its own right to determine what conception of mutual disinterest Rawls has in mind at the various junctions in the text. Furthermore, disambiguating this notion counters a common objection that there is no reason to accept principles of justice that are chosen by rational egoists. The persons in Rawls' OP are not rational egoists. Rather, in identifying with the token persons in society they make the actual interests of the token persons into their ends and they know that they…Read more
-
69The variety of evidence thesis in confirmation theory states that more varied supporting evidence confirms a hypothesis to a greater degree than less varied evidence. Under a very plausible interpretation of this thesis, positive test results from multiple independent instruments confirm a hypothesis to a greater degree than positive test results from a single instrument. We invoke Bayesian Networks to model confirmation on grounds of evidence that is obtained from less than fully reliable instr…Read more
-
32Welfare, 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
-
60Bayesian Networks in PhilosophyIn Benedikt Lowe, Wolfgang Malzkorn & Thoralf Räsch (eds.), Foundations of The Formal Sciences II. Applications of Mathematical Logic in Philosophy and Linguistics [Trends in Logic], Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 39-46. 2002.There is a long philosophical tradition of addressing questions in philosophy of science and epistemology by means of the tools of Bayesian probability theory (see Earman (1992) and Howson and Urbach (1993)). In the late '70s, an axiomatic approach to conditional independence was developed within a Bayesian framework. This approach in conjunction with developments in graph theory are the two pillars of the theory of Bayesian Networks, which is a theory of probabilistic reasoning in artificial in…Read more
-
14Bayesianische 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
-
23A 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
-
634Why There Cannot be a Single Probabilistic Measure of CoherenceErkenntnis 63 (3): 361-374. 2005.Bayesian Coherence Theory of Justification or, for short, Bayesian Coherentism, is characterized by two theses, viz. (i) that our degree of confidence in the content of a set of propositions is positively affected by the coherence of the set, and (ii) that coherence can be characterized in probabilistic terms. There has been a longstanding question of how to construct a measure of coherence. We will show that Bayesian Coherentism cannot rest on a single measure of coherence, but requires a vecto…Read more
-
44Utilitarianism, 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
-
310ApologiesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3): 219-239. 2008.There is a cognitive, an affective, a conative, and an attitudinal component to a genuine apology. In discussing these components, I address the following questions. Might apologies be due for non-culpable actions? Might apologies be due for choices in moral dilemmas? What is the link between sympathy, remorse and making amends? Is it meaningful for resilient akratics to apologize? How much moral renewal is required when one apologizes? Why should apologies be offered in a humble manner? And is …Read more
-
107Voting Procedures for Complex Collective Decisions. An Epistemic PerspectiveRatio Juris 17 (2): 241-258. 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
-
167Vergiffenis in Elsschots Het Been: Boorman vs. LaarmansAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 100 (4). 2008.In the novel "Het Been" by the Flemish writer Willem Elsschot. In the novel, a businessman becomes obsessive over the fact that a victim of his unscrupulous business practices refuses to forgive him. This raises the following questions: Why does one find it upsetting when the victim of one's wrongdoing refuses to accept our apologies? Why does one find it upsetting when the victim is unwilling to grant us the forgiveness that we are asking for?
-
657The value of hopePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (3): 667-681. 1999.Hope obeys Aristotle's doctrine of the mean: one should neither hope too much, nor too little. But what determines what constitutes too much and what constitutes too little for a particular person at a particular time? The sceptic presents an argument to the effect that it is never rational to hope. An attempt to answer the sceptic leads us in different directions. Decision-theoretic and preference-theoretic arguments support the instrumental value of hope. An investigation into the nature of ho…Read more
-
203Too Odd (Not) to Be True? A Reply to OlssonBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (4): 539-563. 2002.Corroborating Testimony, Probability and Surprise’, Erik J. Olsson ascribes to L. Jonathan Cohen the claims that if two witnesses provide us with the same information, then the less probable the information is, the more confident we may be that the information is true (C), and the stronger the information is corroborated (C*). We question whether Cohen intends anything like claims (C) and (C*). Furthermore, he discusses the concurrence of witness reports within a context of independent witnesses…Read more
-
72The puzzle of the hatsSynthese 172 (1): 57-78. 2010.The Puzzle of the Hats is a betting arrangement which seems to show that a Dutch book can be made against a group of rational players with common priors who act in the common interest and have full trust in the other players’ rationality. But we show that appearances are misleading—no such Dutch book can be made. There are four morals. First, what can be learned from the puzzle is that there is a class of situations in which credences and betting rates diverge. Second, there is an analogy betwee…Read more
-
206The 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
-
252The Tragedy of the Commons as a Voting GameIn Martin Peterson (ed.), The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Classic philosophical arguments., Cambridge University Press. pp. 156-176. 2015.The Tragedy of the Commons is often associated with an n-person Prisoner’s Dilemma. But it can also have the structure of an n-person Game of Chicken, an Assurance Game, or of a Voting Games (or a Three-in-a-Boat Game). I present three historical stories that document tragedies of the commons, as presented in Aristotle, Mahanarayan and Hume and argue that the descriptions of these historical cases align better with Voting Games than with any other games.
-
77The rhythm method and embryonic deathJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (6): 355-356. 2006.Some proponents of the pro-life movement argue against morning after pills, IUDs, and contraceptive pills on grounds of a concern for causing embryonic death. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the pro-life line of argumentation can be extended to the rhythm method of contraception as well. Given certain plausible empirical assumptions, the rhythm method may well be responsible for a much higher number of embryonic deaths than some other contraceptive techniques
-
615The two faces of akratics AnonymousAnalysis 59 (4). 1999.I argue that by constructing an identity of Bohemian whim and spontaneity one can make what was previously an akratic action into a fully rational action, since in performing the action, one asserts one identity.
-
188The meaning of "darn it!"In Iwao Hirose & Andrew Reisner (eds.), Weighing and Reasoning: Themes from the Philosophy of John Broome, Oxford University Press. pp. 129-39. 2015.In decision-theory, the notion of regret enters into the minimax decision-rule and has a determinate usage in this context. However, there are many alternative ways of conceiving of regret. The chapter constructs the einmalist- nicht-keinmal ('once is not never') game, in which a single sampling radically changes the expected value of the game in a way that is quite counterintuitive, as the basis for studying regret after a loss following the choice of an uncertain action. Crucially, the very lo…Read more
-
125The doctrinal paradox and the mixed-motivation problemAnalysis 66 (1): 35-39. 2006.There are two seemingly unrelated paradoxes of democracy. The older one is the doctrinal paradox or the discursive dilemma. or a comprehensive bibliography, see List 1995. The younger one is the mixed motivation problem introduced by Jonathan Wolff (1994) in this journal. In the mixed motivation problem, we have voters with mixed Benthamite and Rousseauian motivations who reach a majority on an issue that is neither in the self-interest of a majority of the voters, nor considered to be conducive…Read more
-
30The 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
-
44De doctrinale paradoxAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 97 (1). 2005.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
-
67The intentional acquisition of mental statesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (4): 821-840. 1995.I examine the normative status of various wanting-to-believe cases and wanting-to-desire cases.
-
126The Ethics of DieselgateMidwest Studies in Philosophy 40 (1): 262-283. 2016.I investigate what, if anything, can be said in defense of Volkswagen's decision to install a cheat device in their diesel engines to evade NOx emission testing.
-
195There are two curious features about the backward induction argument (BIA) to the effect that repeated non-cooperation is the rational solution to the finite iterated prisoner’s dilemma (FIPD). First, however compelling the argument may seem, one remains hesitant either to recommend this solu- tion to players who are about to engage in cooperation or to explain cooperation as a deviation from rational play in real-life FIPD’s. Second, there seems to be a similarity between t…Read more
-
319The epistemology of social facts: the evidential value of personal experience versus testimonyIn Georg Meggle (ed.), Social Facts and Collective Intentionality. Philosophische Forschung / Philosophical research, Dr. Haensel-hohenhausen. pp. 43-51. 2002."The Personal is Political": This was an often-heard slogan of feminist groups in the late sixties and early seventies. The slogan is no doubt open to many interpretations. There is one interpretation which touches on the epistemology of social facts, viz. the slogan claims that in assessing the features of a political system, personal experiences have privileged evidentiary value. For instancte, in the face of third person reports about political corruption, I may remain unmoved in my belief th…Read more
-
160Sour grapes and character planningJournal of Philosophy 89 (2): 57-78. 1992.I argue that character planning differs from sour grapes in that the former but not the latter leaves the agent with a coherent preference structure.
-
465Solving the Riddle of CoherenceMind 112 (448): 601-634. 2003.A coherent story is a story that fits together well. This notion plays a central role in the coherence theory of justification and has been proposed as a criterion for scientific theory choice. Many attempts have been made to give a probabilistic account of this notion. A proper account of coherence must not start from some partial intuitions, but should pay attention to the role that this notion is supposed to play within a particular context. Coherence is a property of an information set that …Read more
-
82Special issue of Synthese on Bayesian EpistemologySynthese 156 (3): 403-403. 2007.The papers in this collection were presented at a workshop on Bayesian Epistemology at the 26th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Austria (August 4–7, 2003), at a workshop on Philosophy and Probability at the conference GAP5 in Bielefeld, Germany (September 20–22, 2003), at a workshop on Bayesian Epistemology at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science in London, UK (June 28, 2004), or at the seminar of the res…Read more
-
145Situationist charges versus personologist defenses and the issue of skillsIn Ronna F. Dillon & James Pellegrino (eds.), Testing: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives, Praeger. pp. 199-217. 1989.We discuss theoretical topics in personality theory and in the methodology of personality measurement, and present personality tests that were developed in the Center for Recruitment and Selection in the Belgian Army.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Economics |
Moral Psychology |
Formal Epistemology |
Epistemic Paradoxes |