-
889DDL unlimited: Dynamic doxastic logic for introspective agentsErkenntnis 50 (2-3): 353-385. 1999.The theories of belief change developed within the AGM-tradition are not logics in the proper sense, but rather informal axiomatic theories of belief change. Instead of characterizing the models of belief and belief change in a formalized object language, the AGM-approach uses a natural language — ordinary mathematical English — to characterize the mathematical structures that are under study. Recently, however, various authors such as Johan van Benthem and Maarten de Rijke have suggested repr…Read more
-
592The strike of the demon: On fitting pro‐attitudes and valueEthics 114 (3): 391-423. 2004.The paper presents and discusses the so-called Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem (WKR problem) that arises for the fitting-attitudes analysis of value. This format of analysis is exemplified for example by Scanlon's buck-passing account, on which an object's value consists in the existence of reasons to favour the object- to respond to it in a positive way. The WKR problem can be put as follows: It appears that in some situations we might well have reasons to have pro-attitudes toward objects that a…Read more
-
556Epistemic entrenchment with incomparabilities and relational belief revisionIn André Fuhrmann & Michael Morreau (eds.), The Logic of Theory Change, Springer. pp. 93--126. 1991.In earlier papers (Lindström & Rabinowicz, 1989. 1990), we proposed a generalization of the AGM approach to belief revision. Our proposal was to view belief revision as a relation rather thanas a function on theories (or belief sets). The idea was to allow for there being several equally reasonable revisions of a theory with a given proposition. In the present paper, we show that the relational approach is the natural result of generalizing in a certain way an approach to belief revision due to…Read more
-
367On probabilistic representation of non-probabilistic belief revisionJournal of Philosophical Logic 18 (1). 1989.
-
364The Ramsey test revisitedIn G. Crocco, L. Fariñas del Cerro & A. Herzig (eds.), Conditionals: From Philosophy to Computer Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 131-182. 1995.
-
361Value relationsTheoria 74 (1): 18-49. 2008.Abstract: The paper provides a general account of value relations. It takes its departure in a special type of value relation, parity, which according to Ruth Chang is a form of evaluative comparability that differs from the three standard forms of comparability: betterness, worseness and equal goodness. Recently, Joshua Gert has suggested that the notion of parity can be accounted for if value comparisons are interpreted as normative assessments of preference. While Gert's basic idea is attrac…Read more
-
331A distinction in value: Intrinsic and for its own sakeProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100 (1). 2000.The paper argues that the final value of an object-i.e., its value for its own sake-need not be intrinsic. Extrinsic final value, which accrues to things (or persons) in virtue of their relational rather than internal features, cannot be traced back to the intrinsic value of states that involve these things together with their relations. On the contrary, such states, insofar as they are valuable at all, derive their value from the things involved. The endeavour to reduce thing-values to state-v…Read more
-
328Prioritarianism for ProspectsUtilitas 14 (1): 2-21. 2002.The Interpersonal Addition Theorem, due to John Broome, states that, given certain seemingly innocuous assumptions, the overall utility of an uncertain prospect can be represented as the sum of its individual utilities. Given ‘Bernoulli's hypothesis’ according to which individual utility coincides with individual welfare, this result appears to be incompatible with the Priority View. On that view, due to Derek Parfit, the benefits to the worse off should count for more, in the overall evaluation…Read more
-
321Backwards induction in the centipede gameAnalysis 59 (4): 237-242. 1999.The standard backward-induction reasoning in a game like the centipede assumes that the players maintain a common belief in rationality throughout the game. But that is a dubious assumption. Suppose the first player X didn't terminate the game in the first round; what would the second player Y think then? Since the backwards-induction argument says X should terminate the game, and it is supposed to be a sound argument, Y might be entitled to doubt X's rationality. Alternatively, Y might doubt th…Read more
-
289Introduction to the special issue “Beliefs in Groups” of Theory and DecisionTheory and Decision 85 (1): 1-4. 2018.This symposium in the overlap of philosophy and decision theory is described well by its title “Beliefs in Groups”. Each word in the title matters, with one intended ambiguity. The symposium is about beliefs rather than other attitudes such as preferences; these beliefs take the form of probabilities in the first three contributions, binary yes/no beliefs (‘judgments’) in the fourth contribution, and qualitative probabilities (‘probability grades’) in the fifth contributio…Read more
-
272A centipede for intransitive preferrersStudia Logica 67 (2): 167-178. 2000.In the standard money pump, an agent with cyclical preferences can avoid exploitation if he shows foresight and solves his sequential decision problem using backward induction (BI). This way out is foreclosed in a modified money pump, which has been presented in Rabinowicz (2000). There, BI will lead the agent to behave in a self-defeating way. The present paper describes another sequential decision problem of this kind, the Centipede for an Intransitive Preferrer, which in some respects is even…Read more
-
260Democratic Answers to Complex Questions – An Epistemic PerspectiveSynthese 150 (1): 131-153. 2006.This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is better as a t…Read more
-
256Buck-passing and the right kind of reasonsPhilosophical Quarterly 56 (222). 2006.The ‘buck-passing’ account equates the value of an object with the existence of reasons to favour it. As we argued in an earlier paper, this analysis faces the ‘wrong kind of reasons’ problem: there may be reasons for pro-attitudes towards worthless objects, in particular if it is the pro-attitudes, rather than their objects, that are valuable. Jonas Olson has recently suggested how to resolve this difficulty: a reason to favour an object is of the right kind only if its formulation does not inv…Read more
-
248Two Intuitions about Free Will: Alternative Possibilities and Intentional EndorsementPhilosophical Perspectives 28 (1): 155-172. 2014.Free will is widely thought to require (i) the possibility of acting otherwise and (ii) the intentional endorsement of one’s actions (“indeterministic picking is not enough”). According to (i), a necessary condition for free will is agential-level indeterminism: at some points in time, an agent’s prior history admits more than one possible continuation. According to (ii), however, a free action must be intentionally endorsed, and indeterminism may threaten freedom: if several alternative actions…Read more
-
241Bets on Hats: On Dutch Books Against Groups, Degrees of Belief as Betting Rates, and Group-ReflectionEpisteme 8 (3): 281-300. 2011.The Puzzle of the Hats is a puzzle in social epistemology. It describes a situation in which a group of rational agents with common priors and common goals seems vulnerable to a Dutch book if they are exposed to different information and make decisions independently. Situations in which this happens involve violations of what might be called the Group-Reflection Principle. As it turns out, the Dutch book is flawed. It is based on the betting interpretation of the subjective probabilities, but ig…Read more
-
239Millian superioritiesUtilitas 17 (2): 127-146. 2005.Suppose one sets up a sequence of less and less valuable objects such that each object in the sequence is only marginally worse than its immediate predecessor. Could one in this way arrive at something that is dramatically inferior to the point of departure? It has been claimed that if there is a radical value difference between the objects at each end of the sequence, then at some point there must be a corresponding radical difference between the adjacent elements. The underlying picture seems …Read more
-
237Føllesdal i UppsalaFilosofisk Tidskrift 8 (4). 1987.Årets Hägerströmföreläsningar i Uppsala gavs i februari av den norske filosofen Dagfinn Føllesdal. Ämnet var "Mening og Erfaring". Dagfinn Føllesdal doktorerade 1961 vid Harvard med Willard Van Quine som handledare på en avhandling om kvantifierad modallogik. Han blev internationellt känd främst för studier om Husserls fenomenologi och dess förhållande till Frege samt för sina arbeten om Quines språkfilosofi. Allt sedan 60-talet har Føllesdal delat sin tid mellan Oslouniversitetet och Stanfordun…Read more
-
228Belief change for introspective agentsSpinning Ideas, Electronic Essays Dedicated to Peter Gärdenfors on His Fiftieth Birthday. 1999.We discuss various possibilities for developing a dynamic doxastic logic (DDL) for introspective agents: agents who have the ability to form higher-order beliefs. Such agents can reflect upon and change their minds about their own beliefs. The project of constructing such a logic, full DDL or DDL unlimited, is ridden with difficulties due to the fact that the agent's own doxastic state now becomes a part of the reality he is trying to explore. When an introspective agent learns more about the wo…Read more
-
223Value and unacceptable riskEconomics and Philosophy 21 (2): 177-197. 2005.Consider a transitive value ordering of outcomes and lotteries on outcomes, which satisfies substitutivity of equivalents and obeys “continuity for easy cases,” i.e., allows compensating risks of small losses by chances of small improvements. Temkin (2001) has argued that such an ordering must also – rather counter-intuitively – allow chances of small improvements to compensate risks of huge losses. In this paper, we show that Temkin's argument is flawed but that a better proof is possible. Howe…Read more
-
216The 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
-
214Incommensurability and vaguenessAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1): 71-94. 2009.This paper casts doubts on John Broome's view that vagueness in value comparisons crowds out incommensurability in value. It shows how vagueness can be imposed on a formal model of value relations that has room for different types of incommensurability. The model implements some basic insights of the ‘fitting attitudes’ analysis of value.
-
196Analyticity and Possible-World SemanticsErkenntnis 72 (3): 295-314. 2010.Standard approaches to possible-world semantics allow us to define necessity and logical truth, but analyticity is considerably more difficult to account for. The source of this difficulty lies in the received model-theoretical conception of a language interpretation. In intuitive terms, analyticity amounts to truth in virtue of meaning alone, i.e. solely in virtue of the interpretation of linguistic expressions. In other words, an analytic sentence should remain true under all variations of ‘ex…Read more
-
195Tropic of ValuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2): 389-403. 2003.The authors of this paper earlier argued that concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake), which is not reducible to the value of states of affairs that concern the object in question.Our arguments have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano‐inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attent…Read more
-
179In memoriam: Jordan Howard Sobel (1929–2010)Theoria 76 (3): 192-196. 2010.It's an obituary of Jordan Howard Sobel, a prominent American-Canadian moral philosopher and a decision theorist who died in 2010. The obituary focuses on Sobels' close contacts with the Swedish philosophical community and on his contributions to Theoria.
-
176What if I were in his shoes? On Hare's argument for preference utilitarianismTheoria 62 (1-2): 95-123. 1996.This paper discusses the argument for preference utilitarianism proposed by Richard Hare in Moral Thinking(Hare, 1981). G. F. Schueler (1984) and Ingmar Persson (1989) identified a serious gap in Hare’s reasoning, which might be called the No-Conflict Problem. The paper first tries to fill the gap. Then, however, starting with an idea of Zeno Vendler, the question is raised whether the gap is there to begin with. Unfortunately, this Vendlerian move does not save Hare from criticism. Paradoxicall…Read more
-
176To Have One's Cake and Eat It, Too: Sequential Choice and Expected-utility ViolationsJournal of Philosophy 92 (11): 586-620. 1995.An agent whose preferences violate the Independence Axiom or for some other reason are not representable by an expected utility function, can avoid 'dynamic inconsistency' either by foresight ('sophisticated choice') or by subsequent adjustment of preferences to the chosen plan of action ('resolute choice'). Contrary to McClennen and Machina, among others, it is argued these two seemingly conflicting approaches to 'dynamic rationality' need not be incompatible. 'Wise choice' reconciles foresight…Read more
-
174Broome and the intuition of neutralityPhilosophical Issues 19 (1): 389-411. 2009.In “Weighing Lives” (2004) John Broome criticizes a view common to many population axiologists. On that view, population increases with extra people leading decent lives are axiologically neutral: they make the world neither better nor worse, ceteris paribus. Broome argues that this intuition, however, attractive, cannot be sustained, for several independent reasons. I respond to his criticisms and suggest that the neutrality intuition, if correctly interpreted, can after all be defended.On the …Read more
-
168The 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
-
159Value Based on PreferencesEconomics and Philosophy 12 (1): 1. 1996.What distinguishes preference utilitarianism from other utilitarian positions is the axiological component: the view concerning what is intrinsically valuable. According to PU, intrinsic value is based on preferences. Intrinsically valuable states are connected to our preferences being satisfied
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |