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Are current EU policies on GMOs justified?Transgenic Research 2 (28): 267-286. 2019.The European Court of Justice’s recent ruling that the new techniques for crop development are to be considered as genetically modified organisms under the European Union’s regulations exacerbates the need for a critical evaluation of those regulations. The paper analyzes the regulation from the perspective of moral and political philosophy. It considers whether influential arguments for restrictions of genetically modified organisms provide cogent justifications for the policies that are in pla…Read more
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59A distinction in value: Intrinsic and for its own sake1In Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen & Michael J. Zimmerman (eds.), Recent work on intrinsic value, Springer. pp. 115. 2005.
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36On Hedden's proof that machine learning fairness metrics are flawedInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.1. Fairness is about the just distribution of society's resources, and in ML, the main resource being distributed is model performance, e.g. the translation quality produced by machine translation...
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9Freedom of Expression, Diversity, and TruthIn Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy, Wiley. 2016.The aim of this chapter is to examine how diversity benefits deliberation, information exchange and other socio‐epistemic practices associated with free speech. We separate five distinct dimensions of diversity, and discuss a variety of distinct mechanisms by which various forms of diversity may be thought to have epistemically valuable outcomes. We relate these results to the moral justification of free speech. Finally, we characterise a collective action problem concerning the compliance with …Read more
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39Saving the young before the old - a reply to John HarrisBioethics 8 (1). 1994.ABSTRACT For a distribution of health care resources to be fair, it should consider the consequences for the whole lives of the affected persons and not just how badly off they are at the present moment. Since, other things being equal, a person is worse off if he dies young than if he dies old, it is fair to give scarce vital health care resources to young rather than to old persons. In the paper this ageist view is restated and defended against a number of objections raised by John Harris. Acc…Read more
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75Health Branding EthicsJournal of Business Ethics 104 (1): 33-45. 2011.Commercial food health branding is a challenging branch of marketing because it might, at the same time, promote healthy living and be commercially viable. However, the power to influence individuals’ health behavior and overall health status makes it crucial for marketing professionals to take into account the ethical dimensions of health branding: this article presents a conceptual analysis of potential ethical problems in health branding. The analysis focuses on ethical concerns related to th…Read more
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29The Liberating Power of Commercial MarketingJournal of Business Ethics 93 (4): 519-530. 2010.The aim of this article is to explore the impact of commercial marketing on personal autonomy. Several philosophers argue that marketing conflicts with ideals of autonomy or, at best, is neutral to these ideals. After qualifying our concept of marketing and introducing the distinctions between (i) divergent and convergent marketing and (ii) being autonomous and acting autonomously, we demonstrate the heretofore unnoticed positive impact of marketing on autonomy. Specifically, we argue that (i) c…Read more
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121The Proper Role of Evidence in Complementary/Alternative MedicineJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 35 (1): 7-18. 2010.In this article we explore the role evidence ought to play in complementary and alternative medicine. First, we consider the claim that evidence in the form of randomized controlled trials cannot be obtained for CAMs. Second, we consider various claims to the effect that there are ways of obtaining evidence that do not make use of RCTs. We argue that there is no good reason why CAM should be exempted from the general requirement that treatments undergo evaluation by RCT. Third, we consider two i…Read more
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Complementary/alternative medicine and the evidence requirementIn Miriam Solomon, Jeremy R. Simon & Harold Kincaid (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine, Routledge. 2016.
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53CRISPR is currently viewed as the central tool for future gene therapy. Yet, many prominent scientists and bioethicists have expressed ethical concerns around CRISPR gene therapy. This paper provides a critical review of concerns about CRISPR gene therapy as expressed in the mainstream academic literature, paired with replies also generally found in that literature. The expressed concerns can be categorised into three types depending on whether they stress risk/benefit ratio, autonomy and inform…Read more
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9On the klawonntology of consciousness and selfhoodDanish Yearbook of Philosophy 35 (1): 55-71. 2000.
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85Science as Public Reason and the Controversiality ObjectionRes Publica 27 (4): 619-639. 2021.We all agree that democratic decision-making requires a factual input, and most of us assume that when the pertinent facts are not in plain view they should be furnished by well-functioning scientific institutions. But how should liberal democracy respond when apparently sincere, rational and well-informed citizens object to coercive legislation because it is based on what they consider a misguided trust in certain parts of science? Cases are familiar, the most prominent concerning climate scien…Read more
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649Process Reliabilism, Prime Numbers and the Generality ProblemLogos and Episteme 11 (2): 231-236. 2020.This paper aims to show that Selim Berker’s widely discussed prime number case is merely an instance of the well-known generality problem for process reliabilism and thus arguably not as interesting a case as one might have thought. Initially, Berker’s case is introduced and interpreted. Then the most recent response to the case from the literature is presented. Eventually, it is argued that Berker’s case is nothing but a straightforward consequence of the generality problem, i.e., the problemat…Read more
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74How moral disagreement may ground principled moral compromisePolitics, Philosophy and Economics 17 (1): 75-96. 2018.In an influential article, Simon C. May forcefully argued that, properly understood, there can never be principled reasons for moral compromise. While there may be pragmatic reasons for compromising that involve, for instance, concern for political expediency or for stability, there are properly speaking no principled reasons to compromise. My aim in the article is to show how principled moral compromise in the context of moral disagreements over policy options is possible. I argue that when we …Read more
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560Moral Disagreement and Higher-Order EvidenceEthical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (5): 1103-1120. 2019.This paper sketches a general account of how to respond in an epistemically rational way to moral disagreement. Roughly, the account states that when two parties, A and B, disagree as to whether p, A says p while B says not-p, this is higher-order evidence that A has made a cognitive error on the first-order level of reasoning in coming to believe that p. If such higher-order evidence is not defeated, then one rationally ought to reduce one’s confidence with respect to the proposition in questio…Read more
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36Bottom up justification, asymmetric epistemic push, and the fragility of higher order justificationEpisteme 16 (2): 119-138. 2019.
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29Can We Comply with the Ideal of Value-Freedom? A Reply to Miller’s Critique of the Ideal of Value-Freedom in ScienceEthics, Policy and Environment 22 (1): 90-99. 2019.The purpose of this paper is to discuss Miller’s recent claim that 1) the ideal of value-freedom is implausible because evidence from experimental psychology reveals how scientific reasoning is val...
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58Polarization in groups of Bayesian agentsSynthese 198 (1): 1-55. 2018.In this paper we present the results of a simulation study of credence developments in groups of communicating Bayesian agents, as they update their beliefs about a given proposition p. Based on the empirical literature, one would assume that these groups of rational agents would converge on a view over time, or at least that they would not polarize. This paper presents and discusses surprising evidence that this is not true. Our simulation study shows that these groups of Bayesian agents show g…Read more
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137Higher Order Evidence and Deep DisagreementTopoi 40 (5): 1039-1050. 2018.In deep disagreements local disagreements are intertwined with more general basic disagreements about the relevant evidence, standards of argument or proper methods of inquiry in that domain. The paper provides a more specific conception of deep disagreement along these lines and argues that while we should generally conciliate in cases of disagreement, this is not so in deep disagreements. The paper offers a general view of disagreement, holding roughly that one should moderate one’s credence t…Read more
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159Disagreement and the division of epistemic laborSynthese 197 (7): 2823-2847. 2018.In this article we discuss what we call the deliberative division of epistemic labor. We present evidence that the human tendency to engage in motivated reasoning in defense of our beliefs can facilitate the occurrence of divisions of epistemic labor in deliberations among people who disagree. We further present evidence that these divisions of epistemic labor tend to promote beliefs that are better supported by the evidence. We show that promotion of these epistemic benefits stands in tension w…Read more
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51Does Controversial Science Call For Public Participation? The Case Of Gmo SkepticismLes ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 12 (1): 26-50. 2017.Andreas Christiansen,Karin Jonch-Clausen,Klemens Kappel | : Many instances of new and emerging science and technology are controversial. Although a number of people, including scientific experts, welcome these developments, a considerable skepticism exists among members of the public. The use of genetically modified organisms is a case in point. In science policy and in science communication, it is widely assumed that such controversial science and technology require public participation in the …Read more
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27Public Participation, Legitimate Political Decisions, and Controversial Technologies : IntroductionLes Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 12 (1): 21-25. 2017.Xavier Landes,Martin Andersen,Klemens Kappel
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33Public Participation, Legitimate Political Decisions, and Controversial Technologies : IntroductionLes ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 12 (1): 21-25. 2017.Xavier Landes,Martin Andersen,Klemens Kappel
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63Fact-Dependent Policy Disagreements and Political LegitimacyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (2): 313-331. 2017.Suppose we have a persistent disagreement about a particular set of policy options, not because of an underlying moral disagreement, or a mere conflict of interest, but rather because we disagree about a crucial non-normative factual assumption underlying the justification of the policy choices. The main question in the paper is what political legitimacy requires in such cases, or indeed whether there are defensible answers to that question. The problem of political legitimacy in fact-dependent …Read more
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55A Diagnosis and Resolution to the Generality ProblemPhilosophical Studies 127 (3): 525-560. 2006.The purpose of this paper is to offer a diagnosis and a resolution to generality problem. I state the generality problem and suggest a distinction between criteria of relevance and what I call a theory of determination. The generality problem may concern either of these. While plausible criteria of relevance would be convenient for the externalist, he does not need them. I discuss various theories of determination, and argue that no existing theory of determination is plausible. This provides a …Read more