•  74
    A Note on List's Modal Logic of Republican Freedom
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (3): 341-349. 2008.
    In this note, I show how Christian List's modal logic of republican freedom (as published in this journal in 2006) can be extended (1) to grasp the differences between liberal freedom (noninterference) and republican freedom (non-domination) in terms of two purely logical axioms and (2) to cover a more recent definition of republican freedom in terms of `arbitrary interference' that gains popularity in the literature.
  •  156
    We and the plural subject
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (2): 235-259. 2009.
    Margaret Gilbert's plural subject theory defines social collectives in terms of common knowledge of expressed willingness to participate in some joint action. The author critically examines Gilbert's application of this theory to linguistic phenomena involving "we," arguing that recent work in linguistics provides the tools to develop a superior account. The author indicates that, apart from its own relevance, one should care about this critique because Gilbert's claims about the first person pl…Read more
  •  105
    Overmathematisation in game theory: pitting the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme against the Epistemic Programme
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (3): 290-300. 2009.
    The paper argues that the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme was less successful than its competitor, the Epistemic Programme. The prime criterion of success is the extent to which the programmes were able to reach the key objective guiding non-cooperative game theory for much of the twentieth century, namely, to develop a complete characterisation of the strategic rationality of economic agents in the form of the ultimate solution concept for any normal form and extensive game. The paper exp…Read more
  •  21
    In this topical book, Boudewijn de Bruin examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. He argues that the most important moral problem in finance is not the 'greed is good' culture, but rather the epistemic shortcomings of bankers, clients, rating agencies and regulators. Drawing on insights from economics, psychology and philosophy, de Bruin develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue and applies it to racist and sexist lending practices, subprime mort…Read more
  •  16
    Over de wetenschappelijkheid van de rechtswetenschap
    Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 38 (3): 236-243. 2009.
    This article provides an outsider perspective on the scientificity of legal studies. First, I argue that the presence of controversies does not mean that legal studies lack the status of a genuine science. Astronomy, mathematics, and economics have their controversies, too. Second, I show that non-empirical, non-normative research is no less scientific than empirical research. This is illustrated by work in mathematical logic. Third, I demonstrate the same claim for non-empirical, normative rese…Read more
  •  49
  •  77
    Epistemic Virtues in Business
    Journal of Business Ethics 113 (4): 583-595. 2013.
    This paper applies emerging research on epistemic virtues to business ethics. Inspired by recent work on epistemic virtues in philosophy, I develop a view in which epistemic virtues contribute to the acquisition of knowledge that is instrumentally valuable in the realisation of particular ends, business ends in particular. I propose a conception of inquiry according to which epistemic actions involve investigation, belief adoption and justification, and relate this to the traditional ‘justified …Read more
  •  150
    Common Knowledge of Payoff Uncertainty in Games
    Synthese 163 (1): 79-97. 2008.
    Using epistemic logic, we provide a non-probabilistic way to formalise payoff uncertainty, that is, statements such as ‘player i has approximate knowledge about the utility functions of player j.’ We show that on the basis of this formalisation common knowledge of payoff uncertainty and rationality (in the sense of excluding weakly dominated strategies, due to Dekel and Fudenberg (1990)) characterises a new solution concept we have called ‘mixed iterated strict weak dominance.’.
  •  146
    Wittgenstein on Circularity in the Frege-Russell Definition of Cardinal Number
    Philosophia Mathematica 16 (3): 354-373. 2008.
    Several scholars have argued that Wittgenstein held the view that the notion of number is presupposed by the notion of one-one correlation, and that therefore Hume's principle is not a sound basis for a definition of number. I offer a new interpretation of the relevant fragments on philosophy of mathematics from Wittgenstein's Nachlass, showing that if different uses of ‘presupposition’ are understood in terms of de re and de dicto knowledge, Wittgenstein's argument against the Frege-Russell def…Read more
  •  102
    In this paper I criticize Popper's conception of the rationality principle in the social sciences. First, I survey Popper's outlook on the role of a principle of rationality in theorizing in the social sciences. Then, I critically examine his view on the status of the principle of rationality concluding that the arguments supporting it are quite weak. Finally, I contrast his standpoint with an alternative conception. This, I show, helps us understand better Popper's reasons for adopting his pers…Read more
  •  127
    Contents. Introduction. 1. Preliminaries. 2. Normal Form Games. 3. Extensive Games. 4. Applications of Game Theory. 5. The Methodology of Game Theory. Conclusion. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Does game theory—the mathematical theory of strategic interaction—provide genuine explanations of human behaviour? Can game theory be used in economic consultancy or other normative contexts? Explaining Games: The Epistemic Programme in Game Theory—the first monograph on the philosophy of game theory—is …Read more
  •  170
    The Liberal Value of Privacy
    Law and Philosophy 29 (5): 505-534. 2010.
    This paper presents an argument for the value of privacy that is based on a purely negative concept of freedom only. I show that privacy invasions may decrease a person’s negative freedom as well as a person’s knowledge about the negative freedom she possesses. I argue that not only invasions that lead to actual interference, but also invasions that lead to potential interference (many cases of identity theft) constitute actual harm to the invadee’s liberty interests, and I critically examine th…Read more
  •  353
    The Ethics of Cloud Computing
    Science and Engineering Ethics 23 (1): 21-39. 2017.
    Cloud computing is rapidly gaining traction in business. It offers businesses online services on demand (such as Gmail, iCloud and Salesforce) and allows them to cut costs on hardware and IT support. This is the first paper in business ethics dealing with this new technology. It analyzes the informational duties of hosting companies that own and operate cloud computing datacenters (e.g., Amazon). It considers the cloud services providers leasing ‘space in the cloud’ from hosting companies (e.g, …Read more
  •  192
    Media Violence and Freedom of Speech: How to Use Empirical Data (review)
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (5): 493-505. 2008.
    Susan Hurley has argued against a well known argument for freedom of speech, the argument from autonomy, on the basis of two hypotheses about violence in the media and aggressive behaviour. The first hypothesis says that exposure to media violence causes aggressive behaviour; the second, that humans have an innate tendency to copy behaviour in ways that bypass conscious deliberation. I argue, first, that Hurley is not successful in setting aside the argument from autonomy. Second, I show that th…Read more
  •  84
    Common Knowledge of Rationality in Extensive Games
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 49 (3): 261-280. 2008.
    We develop a logical system that captures two different interpretations of what extensive games model, and we apply this to a long-standing debate in game theory between those who defend the claim that common knowledge of rationality leads to backward induction or subgame perfect (Nash) equilibria and those who reject this claim. We show that a defense of the claim à la Aumann (1995) rests on a conception of extensive game playing as a one-shot event in combination with a principle of rationalit…Read more
  •  35
    Editorial Introduction: Putting Virtues Into Practice. A Challenge for Business and Organizations (review)
    with Joan Fontrodona and Alejo José G. Sison
    Journal of Business Ethics 113 (4): 563-565. 2013.
  •  33
    Pledging Integrity: Oaths as Forms of Business Ethics Management
    Journal of Business Ethics 136 (1): 23-42. 2016.
    The global financial crisis has led to a surprising interest in professional oaths in business. Examples are the MBA Oath, the Economist’s Oath and the Dutch Banker’s Oath, which senior executives in the financial services industry in the Netherlands have been obliged to swear since 2010. This paper is among the first to consider oaths from the perspective of business ethics. A framework is presented for analysing oaths in terms of their form, their content and the specific contribution they mak…Read more
  •  60
    Epistemic Integrity in Accounting
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 32 (1-2): 109-130. 2013.
    This paper presents an epistemological or knowledge-theoretic reinterpretation of the role of external accountants. It presents a joint epistemic agent model in which corporate management and accountants together form a source of testimonial knowledge for the firm’s stakeholders about the firm’s financial situation. Recent work from virtue epistemology is used, according to which knowledge is, roughly, true belief that is justified by way of the exercise of epistemic virtue. In the joint epistem…Read more
  •  30
    There is evidence to the effect that exposing children to alcohol consumption in the media increases the chances that they will consume alcohol as minors or as adults, and since alcohol consumption is associated with numerous public health issues, calls for stricter regulation can be heard from many quarters. This article argues that with the available research we cannot conclude that exposure to portrayals of alcohol consumption plays a genuine causal role in bringing about the things with whic…Read more
  •  64
    The Logic of Valuing
    In Thomas Boylan & Ruvin Gekker (eds.), Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy, Routledge. 2009.
    This paper analyzes the logical form of valuing. I argue that valuing a concept or property is a universal statement qua logical form, that valuing an object is an existential statement qua logical form, and, furthermore, that a correct analysis of the logical form of valuing contains doxastic operators. I show that these ingredients give rise to an interesting interplay between uniform and ununiform quantification, on the one hand, and de dicto and de re beliefs, on the other. I apply this anal…Read more
  •  26
    On Glazer and Rubinstein on persuasion
    In Krzysztof R. Apt & Robert van Rooij (eds.), New Perspectives on Games and Interactions, Amsterdam University Press. 2008.
    Jacob Glazer and Ariel Rubinstein proffer an exciting new approach to analyze persuasion, using formal tools from economics to address questions that argumentation theorists, logicians, and cognitive and social psychologists have been interested in since Aristotle's Rhetoric. In this note I examine to what extent their approach is successful, and show ways to extend it.
  •  45
    Doxastische en epistemische vrijheid
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 71 (3): 529. 2009.
  •  78
    On the Narrow Epistemology of Game Theoretic Agents
    In Ondrej Majer, Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen & Tero Tulenheimo (eds.), Games: Unifying Logic, Language, and Philosophy, Springer. 2009.
    I argue that game theoretic explanations of human actions make implausible epistemological assumptions. A logical analysis of game theoretic explanations shows that they do not conform to the belief-desire framework of action explanation. Epistemic characterization theorems (specifying sufficient conditions for game theoretic solution concepts to obtain) are argued to be the canonical way to make game theory conform to that framework. The belief formation practices implicit in epistemic characte…Read more
  •  130
    Reducible and Nonsensical Uses of Game Theory
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 38 (2): 247-266. 2008.
    The mathematical tools of game theory are frequently used in the social sciences and economic consultancy. But how do they explain social phenomena and support prescriptive judgments? And is the use of game theory really necessary? I analyze the logical form of explanatory and prescriptive game theoretical statements, and argue for two claims: (1) explanatory game theory can and should be reduced to rational choice theory in all cases; and (2) prescriptive game theory gives bad advice in some ca…Read more