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216Risk, Precaution, and CausationTetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan 6 22-53. 2022.This paper aims to scrutinize how the notion of risk should be understood and applied to possibly catastrophic cases. I begin with clarifying the standard usage of the notion of risk, particularly emphasizing the conceptual relation between risk and probability. Then, I investigate how to make decisions in the case of seemingly catastrophic disasters by contrasting the precautionary principle with the preventive (prevention) principle. Finally, I examine what kind of causal thinking tends to b…Read more
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1649The Death Penalty Debate: Four Problems and New Philosophical PerspectivesJournal of Practical Ethics 5 (1): 53-80. June 2017.This paper aims at bringing a new philosophical perspective to the current debate on the death penalty through a discussion of peculiar kinds of uncertainties that surround the death penalty. I focus on laying out the philosophical argument, with the aim of stimulating and restructuring the death penalty debate. I will begin by describing views about punishment that argue in favour of either retaining the death penalty (‘retentionism’) or abolishing it (‘abolitionism’). I will then argue that we…Read more
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300An Essay towards an Epistemology of Responsibility: A Probabilistic ApproachPhilosophical Studies (University of Tokyo) 34 1-32. 2016.This paper tries to develop an epistemological analysis on the notion of responsibility. After pointing out a peculiar kind of uncertainties concerning the notion of responsibility, I focus upon the issue of criminal responsibility, taking the case of mentally disordered offenders into account, and propose the distinction of the phases between sentence and practice with applying Slobogin's idea of integrationism. Finally, I propose a probabilistic approach to the problem of responsibility throu…Read more
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116Normativity, probability, and meta-vaguenessSynthese 194 (10): 3879-3900. 2017.This paper engages with a specific problem concerning the relationship between descriptive and normative claims. Namely, if we understand that descriptive claims frequently contain normative assertions, and vice versa, how then do we interpret the traditionally rigid distinction that is made between the two, as ’Hume’s law’ or Moore’s ’naturalistic fallacy’ argument offered. In particular, Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s ’rule-following paradox’ is specially focused upon in order to re…Read more
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78Strawson on Locke's Theory of Personal IdentityPhilosophical Studies (University of Tokyo) 32 1-9. 2014.
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35Bayesianism, Medical Decisions, and ResponsibilityIn 21st Century C. O. E. Program Dals (ed.), Philosophy of Uncertainty and Medical Decisions, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, the University of Tokyo. pp. 15-42. 2006.
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298Uncertainty and the Precautionary Principle concerning Problems about Radiation ExposureIn Hitoshi Ieda Naesun Park (ed.), Vulnerability and Toughness in Urban Systems, . pp. 167. 2012.
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418A Philosophical Inquiry into the Confusion over the radiation Exposure ProblemJournal of Disaster Research 11 (sp). 2016.In this paper, I discuss from a philosophical viewpoint the so-called radiation problem that resulted from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The starting point lies in the conceptual distinction between “damage due to radiation” and “damage caused by avoiding radiation.” We can recognize the direct “damage due to radiation” in Fukushima as not serious based on the empirical data so that I focus upon the problem of the “damage caus…Read more
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63Hybrid Nature of Causation: A Consideration from Some Ethical IssuesIn Tetsuji Uehiro Julian Savulescu (ed.), Ethics for the Future of Life, . pp. 60-80. 2013.
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42Vagueness of Free WillProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 15 53-58. 2008.I aim to bring the idea of “degree of free will or freedom” into philosophical debates on free will by rejecting the formulation, ‘we are either free or not’. This idea is based upon my viewpoint of regarding freedom as a realistic phenomena actually occurring. First of all, I focus on the fact that it is vague whether an agent is free or not. This vagueness is interpreted as ontic vagueness, corresponding with the status of freedom as real. However, Evans’s argument regarding ontic vagueness mu…Read more
Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan