Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
  •  5
    Explanation, prediction, and conceptual exploration
    Journal of Economic Methodology 1-9. forthcoming.
    This essay aims to provide a rigorous foundation for Gilboa's, Postlewaite's, Samuelson's and Schmeidler's (GPSS's) account of the constitution of models and the role of models in explanation and prediction. Although I shall offer some criticisms, my goal is to sketch analyses of explanations and models that complement GPSS's distinctions between the uses of models to explain, prescribe, predict, and explore the consequences of theories.
  •  1041
    Cómo tomar decisiones justas en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de salud
    with Ole Frithjof Norheim, Trygve Ottersen, Bona Chitah, Richard Cookson, Norman Daniels, Frehiwot Defaye, Nir Eyal, Walter Flores, Axel Gosseries, Samia Hurst, Lydia Kapiriri, Toby Ord, Shlomi Segall, Gita Sen, Alex Voorhoeve, Tessa T. T. Edejer, Andreas Reis, Ritu Sadana, Carla Saenz, Alicia Yamin, and Daniel Wikler
    Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO). 2015.
    La cobertura universal de salud está en el centro de la acción actual para fortalecer los sistemas de salud y mejorar el nivel y la distribución de la salud y los servicios de salud. Este documento es el informe fi nal del Grupo Consultivo de la OMS sobre la Equidad y Cobertura Universal de Salud. Aquí se abordan los temas clave de la justicia (fairness) y la equidad que surgen en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de salud. Por lo tanto, el informe es pertinente para cada agente que infl uy…Read more
  •  1285
    Faire Des Choix Justes Pour Une Couverture Sanitaire Universelle
    with Ole Frithjof Norheim, Trygve Ottersen, Bona Chitah, Richard Cookson, Norman Daniels, Frehiwot Defaye, Nir Eyal, Walter Flores, Axel Gosseries, Samia Hurst, Lydia Kapiriri, Toby Ord, Shlomi Segall, Gita Sen, Alex Voorhoeve, Daniel Wikler, Alicia Yamin, Tessa T. T. Edejer, Andreas Reis, Ritu Sadana, and Carla Saenz
    World Health Organization. 2015.
    This report from the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage offers advice on how to make progress fairly towards universal health coverage.
  •  4
    Comparability of health states
    Philosophical Studies 1-13. forthcoming.
    Measuring an individual’s health states presupposes the ability to compare them. I maintain that our ability to compare quantities or magnitudes of health are severely limited. It is easier to compare values of health states, but those values are context dependent and often unreliable.
  •  1478
    Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage
    with Ole Frithjof Norheim, Trygve Ottersen, Bona Chitah, Richard Cookson, Norman Daniels, Nir Eyal, Walter Flores, Axel Gosseries, Samia Hurst, Lydia Kapiriri, Toby Ord, Shlomi Segall, Frehiwot Defaye, Alex Voorhoeve, and Alicia Yamin
    World Health Organisation. 2014.
    This report by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage addresses how countries can make fair progress towards the goal of universal coverage. It explains the relevant tradeoffs between different desirable ends and offers guidance on how to make these tradeoffs.
  •  134
    Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy
    with Michael McPherson and Debra Satz
    Cambridge University Press. 2006.
    This book shows through argument and numerous policy-related examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores the idea of rationality and its connections to ethics, arguing that when they defend their formal model of rationality, most economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II addre…Read more
  •  6
    Philosophy of Economics
    In Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Philosophies of the Sciences, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Economics and Philosophy of Economics Six Central Methodological Problems Inexactness, Ceteris Paribus Clauses, and “Unrealistic Assumptions” Contemporary Directions in Economic Methodology Conclusion References.
  •  2
    This commentary argues that the problems identified in Kenneth V. Iserson’s Essay, “Do you Believe in Magic? Shove, Don’t Nudge: Advising Patients at the Bedside,” are perennial difficulties to which there is no single simple solution. In particular, recent work in psychology offers little help to caregivers, who are in the difficult position of guiding the decisions of their patients while respecting them and ultimately deferring to their wishes.
  •  41
    The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics
    with David Phillips
    Philosophical Review 103 (2): 348. 1994.
  •  139
    Causal Relata: Tokens, Types, or Variables?
    Erkenntnis 63 (1): 33-54. 2005.
    The literature on causation distinguishes between causal claims relating properties or types and causal claims relating individuals or tokens. Many authors maintain that corresponding to these two kinds of causal claims are two different kinds of causal relations. Whether to regard causal relations among variables as yet another variety of causation is also controversial. This essay maintains that causal relations obtain among tokens and that type causal claims are generalizations concerning cau…Read more
  •  47
    Measuring or Valuing Population Health: Some Conceptual Problems
    Public Health Ethics 5 (3): 229-239. 2012.
    There is no way literally to measure health, because health is multi-dimensional, and there is no metric whereby one person who is healthier than a second with respect to one dimension but less healthy with respect to another counts as healthier, less healthy or equally healthy overall. Health analysts instead measure how good or bad health states are in some regard. If these values are measures of health states, then identical health states must have identical values. But in different circumsta…Read more
  •  81
    Weighing Lives
    Mind 114 (455): 718-722. 2005.
  •  3
    Economic analysis and moral philosophy
    Cambridge University Press. 1996.
    Understanding moral philosophy can help one to do economics better, and philosophers can learn by drawing on economic insights and analytical tools. This book argues that standard views of rationality lead economists to espouse questionable moral principles, and discusses methods of economic evaluation in terms of welfare and other moral criteria. It also contains a brief discussion of the relevance of social choice and game theory to philosophy. There is a glossary and at the end of each chapte…Read more
  •  33
    Subjective total comparative evaluations
    Economics and Philosophy 40 (1): 212-225. 2024.
    In Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare, I argued, among other things, that preferences in economics are and ought to be total subjective comparative evaluations, that the theory of rational choice is a reformulation of everyday folk-psychological explanations and predictions of behaviour, and that revealed preference theory is completely untenable. All three of these theses have been challenged in essays by Erik Angner (2018), Francesco Guala (2019) and Johanna Thoma (2021a, 2021b). This essa…Read more
  •  5
    Microeconomic Laws: A Philosophical Analysis
    Noûs 13 (1): 118-122. 1979.
  • Health and well-being
    In Miriam Solomon, Jeremy R. Simon & Harold Kincaid (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine, Routledge. 2016.
  •  1
    Philippe Mongin
    Economics and Philosophy 36 (3): 331-333. 2020.
  •  28
    Is there a human right to essential health care?
    Developing World Bioethics 24 (1): 6-9. 2024.
    In Global Health Impact, Nicole Hassoun joins the ranks of those defending a right to health. Unlike the World Health Organization, which views this right expansively, Hassoun would limit the right to the health needed to enjoy a minimally good life. This essay argues that this right is difficult to specify and insufficient to support the policies Hassoun defends. The essay sketches an alternative view of the obligations of institutions to address health problems that derives from imperfect indi…Read more
  •  13
    Constrained Fairness in Distribution
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 22 (1). 2022.
    In “Weighing Up Weighted Lotteries: Scarcity, Overlap Cases, and Fair Inequalities of Chance”, Gerard Vong addresses intriguing problems in which it is impossible to give an equal chance of receiving a good to a set of equal claimants, because goods can be distributed only via groups which have overlapping membership. Vong proposes a rule for distributing chances that he argues is sensitive to both comparative and absolute fairness. This comment discusses some formal difficulties with Vong’s pro…Read more
  •  14
    Philosophy of Economics: A Retrospective Reflection
    Revue de Philosophie Économique 18 (2): 185-202. 2018.
  •  30
    This essay begins by summarizing the reasons why unregulated health-care markets are inefficient. The inefficiencies stem from the asymmetries of information among providers, patients and payers, which give rise to moral hazard and adverse selection. Attempts to ameliorate these inefficiencies by means of risk-adjusted insurance and monetary incentives such as co-pays and deductibles lessen the inefficiencies at the cost of increasing inequalities. Another possibility is to rely on non-monetary …Read more
  •  62
    Consequentialism and Preference Formation in Economics and Game Theory
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 59 111-130. 2006.
    When students first study expected utility, they are inclined to interpret it as a theory that explains preferences for lotteries in terms of preferences for outcomes. Knowing U($100) and U($0), the agent can calculate that the utility of a gamble of $100 on a fair coin coming up heads is U($100)/2 + U($0)/2. Utilities are indices representing preferences, so in calculating the utility of the gamble, one is apparently giving a causal explanation for the agent’s preference for the gamble.
  •  99
    Philosophy of economics: past and future
    Journal of Economic Methodology 28 (1): 14-22. 2021.
    This essay offers a history of the development of philosophy of economics from the 1830s until today, with a personal perspective on the developments of the last four decades. It argues that change...
  •  111
    Is an Overdose of Paracetamol Bad for One’s Health?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (3): 657-668. 2011.
    1 Overview of the problem2 Situationally Specific Normal Functioning and Capacities3 Kingma’s Criticism4 How Normal Responses can be Pathological5 Too Many Pathologies?6 Conclusions
  •  53
    Review article. The mathematical theory of causation (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (1): 151-162. 1999.
  •  304
    Independence, invariance and the causal Markov condition
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (4): 521-583. 1999.
    This essay explains what the Causal Markov Condition says and defends the condition from the many criticisms that have been launched against it. Although we are skeptical about some of the applications of the Causal Markov Condition, we argue that it is implicit in the view that causes can be used to manipulate their effects and that it cannot be surrendered without surrendering this view of causation.
  •  37
    Challenge Trials: What Are the Ethical Problems?
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (1): 137-145. 2021.
    If, as is alleged, challenge trials of vaccines against COVID-19 are likely to save thousands of lives and vastly diminish the economic and social harms of the pandemic while subjecting volunteers to risks that are comparable to kidney donation, then it would seem that the only sensible objection to such trials would be to deny that they have low risks or can be expected to have immense benefits. This essay searches for a philosophical rationale for rejecting challenge trials while supposing tha…Read more
  •  204
    Review of Dowe, Physical Causation (review)
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33 (4): 717-24. 2002.
  •  1
    Problems with Supply-Side Egalitarianism
    Politics and Society 24 (4): 343-351. 1996.