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23105.168134
We develop a theory of policy advice that focuses on the relationship between the competence of the advisor (e.g., an expert bureaucracy) and the quality of advice that the leader may expect. We describe important tensions between these features present in a wide class of substantively important circumstances. These tensions point to the presence of a trade-off between receiving advice more often and receiving more informative advice. The optimal realization of this trade-off for the leader sometimes induces her to prefer advisors of limited competence – a preference that, we show, is robust under different informational assumptions. We consider how institutional tools available to leaders affect preferences for advisor competence and the quality of advice they may expect to receive in equilibrium.
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24192.16833
There are two main strands of arguments regarding the value-free ideal (VFI): desirability and achievability (Reiss and Sprenger 2020). In this essay, I will argue for what I will call a compatibilist account of upholding the VFI focusing on its desirability even if the VFI is unachievable. First, I will explain what the VFI is. Second, I will show that striving to uphold the VFI (desirability) is compatible with the rejection of its achievability. Third, I will demonstrate that the main arguments against the VFI do not refute its desirability. Finally, I will provide arguments on why it is desirable to strive to uphold the VFI even if the VFI is unachievable and show what role it can play in scientific inquiry. There is no single definition of the VFI, yet the most common way to interpret it is that non-epistemic values ought not to influence scientific reasoning (Brown 2024, 2). Non-epistemic values are understood as certain ethical, social, cultural or political considerations. Therefore, it is the role of epistemic values, such as accuracy, consistency, empirical adequacy and simplicity, to be part of and to ensure proper scientific reasoning.
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24209.16834
There is an overwhelmingly abundance of works in AI Ethics. This growth is chaotic because of how sudden it is, its volume, and its multidisciplinary nature. This makes difficult to keep track of debates, and to systematically characterize goals, research questions, methods, and expertise required by AI ethicists. In this article, I show that the relation between ‘AI’ and ‘ethics’ can be characterized in at least three ways, which correspond to three well-represented kinds of AI ethics: ethics and AI; ethics in AI; ethics of AI. I elucidate the features of these three kinds of AI Ethics, characterize their research questions, and identify the kind of expertise that each kind needs. I also show how certain criticisms to AI ethics are misplaced, as being done from the point of view of one kind of AI ethics, to another kind with different goals. All in all, this work sheds light on the nature of AI ethics, and set the grounds for more informed discussions about scope, methods, and trainings of AI ethicists.
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52602.168359
Critical theory arose as a response to perceived inadequacies in
Marxist theory, and perceived changes in modern capitalism. Critical
theorists emphasized the ability of capitalism to shape the thought
and experience of individuals: it distorts how modern society and its
products appear to us, and how we think about them. So, aesthetic
experience – like all other experience – is moulded to and
compromised by capitalism. For critical theory, if we seek to
understand aesthetics we need to acknowledge this distorting
effect. Critical theorists ask us to pay attention to how art, and aesthetic
experience, suffer under capitalism, and become part of the way in
which capitalism prevents the formation of a better life.
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110274.168365
Prioritarianism is generally understood as a kind of moral
axiology. An axiology provides an account of what makes items, in
this case outcomes, good or bad, better or worse. A moral
axiology focuses on moral value: on what makes outcomes
morally good or bad, morally better or worse. Prioritarianism, specifically, posits that the moral-betterness
ranking of outcomes gives extra weight (“priority”) to
well-being gains and losses affecting those at lower levels of
well-being. It differs from utilitarianism, which is indifferent to
the well-being levels of those affected by gains and
losses.[ 1 ]
Although it is possible to construe prioritarianism as a
non-axiological moral view, this entry follows the prevailing approach
and trains its attention on axiological prioritarianism.
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110288.168371
Dehumanization is widely thought to occur when someone is treated or
regarded as less than human. However, there is an ongoing debate about
how to develop this basic characterization. Proponents of the
harms-based approach focus on the idea that to dehumanize someone
is to treat them in a way that harms their humanity; whereas
proponents of the psychological approach focus on the idea
that to dehumanize someone is to think of them as less than
human. Other theorists adopt a pluralistic view that combines elements
of both approaches. In addition to explaining different views on what it means to
dehumanize someone, this article focuses on related issues, such as
how to resolve the so-called “paradox of dehumanization”;
the causes and consequences of dehumanization; the sorts of contexts
in which dehumanization typically occurs; and the relation between
dehumanization and objectification.
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139616.16838
In a recent publication, Kukla (2014) has argued that we should we abandon naturalistic and social constructivist considerations in attempts to define health due to their alleged failure to account for their normativity and instead define them purely in terms of ‘social justice’. Here, I shall argue that such a purely normativist project is self-defeating, and hence, that health and disease cannot be defined through recourse to social justice alone.
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220591.168386
Political disagreement tends to display a “radical” nature that is partly related to the fact that political beliefs and judgments are generally firmly held. This makes people unlikely to revise and compromise on them. …
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314791.168392
Common moral intuitions are an unprincipled mess. That’s “the trolley problem” in a nutshell. It’s also demonstrated by attempts to distinguish Singer’s drowning child case from our everyday failures to donate to life-saving charities. …
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514708.168397
Comparative philosophy of religion is a subfield of both philosophy of
religion and comparative philosophy. Philosophy of religion engages
with philosophical questions related to religious belief and practice,
including questions concerning the concept of religion itself. Comparative philosophy compares concepts, theories, and arguments from
diverse philosophical traditions. The term “comparative
philosophy of religion” can refer to the comparative
philosophical study of different religions or of different
philosophies of religion. It can thus be either a first-order
philosophical discipline—investigating matters to do with
religion—or a second-order philosophical discipline,
investigating matters to do with philosophical inquiry into religion.
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760888.168406
I've been exploring in this newsletter recently how people's growing inability to understand and control the institutions that shape their lives affects their political views (see here or here for instance). …
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1005871.168413
At the start of the pandemic, Peter Singer and I argued that our top priority should be to learn more, fast. I feel similarly about AI, today. I’m far from an expert on the topic, so the main things I want to do in this post are to (i) share some resources that I’ve found helpful as a novice starting to learn more about the topic over the past couple months, and (ii) invite others to do likewise! …
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1114941.168421
According to classical utilitarianism, well-being consists in pleasure or happiness, the good consists in the sum of well-being, and moral rightness consists in maximizing the good. Leibniz was perhaps the first to formulate this doctrine. Bentham made it widely known. For a long time, however, the second, summing part lacked any clear foundation. John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and Richard Hare all gave arguments for utilitarianism, but they took this summing part for granted. It was John Harsanyi who finally presented compelling arguments for this controversial part of the utilitarian doctrine.
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1149168.168427
[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Juliana
Bidadanure and David Axelsen replaces the
former entry
on this topic by the previous author.]
Egalitarianism is a school of thought in contemporary political
philosophy that treats equality as the chief value of a just political
system. Simply put, egalitarians argue for equality. They
have a presumption in favor of social arrangements that advance
equality, and they treat deviations from equality as prima
facie suspect. They recommend a far greater degree of equality
than we currently have, and they do so for distinctly egalitarian
reasons.
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1322277.168432
Organ sale – for example, allowing or encouraging consenting
adults to become living kidney donors in return for money – has
been proposed as a possible solution to the seemingly chronic shortage
of organs for transplantation. Many people however regard this idea as
abhorrent and argue both that the practice would be unethical and that
it should be banned. This entry outlines some of the different
possible kinds of organ sale, briefly states the case in favour, and
then examines the main arguments against.
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1350681.168438
This paper considers the mundane ways in which AI is being incorporated into scientific practice today, and particularly the extent to which AI is used to automate tasks perceived to be boring, “mere routine” and inconvenient to researchers. We label such uses as instances of “Convenience AI” — that is situations where AI is applied with the primary intention to increase speed and minimize human effort. We outline how attributions of convenience to AI applications involve three key characteristics: (i) an emphasis on speed and ease of action, (ii) a comparative element, as well as (iii) a subject-dependent and subjective quality. Using examples from medical science and development economics, we highlight epistemic benefits, complications, and drawbacks of Convenience AI along these three dimensions. While the pursuit of convenience through AI can save precious time and resources as well as give rise to novel forms of inquiry, our analysis underscores how the uncritical adoption of Convenience AI for the sake of shortcutting human labour may also weaken the evidential foundations of science and generate inertia in how research is planned, set-up and conducted, with potentially damaging implications for the knowledge being produced. Critically, we argue that the consistent association of Convenience AI with the goals of productivity, efficiency, and ease, as often promoted also by companies targeting the research market for AI applications, can lower critical scrutiny of research processes and shift focus away from appreciating their broader epistemic and social implications.
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1467551.168444
A. I guess because I'm exploring the format in some of my own writing. Q. A. It's not ready to show to anyone. In fact the project is more notional than actual—a few notes in a plain text file, which I peek at from time to time. …
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1523645.168449
Following the lead of heterogeneous and invariably brilliant thinkers as Thucydides, Arnold J. Toynbee, Winston Churchill, Carl Sagan, Philip K. Dick, and Niall Ferguson, I consider a virtual history – or an alternative Everettian branch of the universal wavefunction – in which the ancient materialism and atomism of Epicurus (and heliocentrism of Aristarchus, for good measure) have prevailed over the (Neo) Platonist-Aristotelian religious-military complex. Such a historical swerve (pun fully intended) would have removed the unhealthy obsession with mind-body dualism and dialectics, which crippled much of the European thought throughout the last millennium. It is at least open to serious questioning whether quasireligious totalitarian ideologies could have arisen and brought about so much death, suffering and pain in this virtual history as they did in our actual history.
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1523685.168455
It has been argued that non-epistemic values have legitimate roles to play in the classification of psychiatric disorders. Such a value-laden view on psychiatric classification raises questions about the extent to which expert disagreements over psychiatric classification are fueled by disagreements over value judgments and the extent to which these disagreements could be resolved. This paper addresses these questions by arguing for two theses. First, a major source of disagreements about psychiatric classification is factual and concerns what social consequences a classification decision will have. This type of disagreement can be addressed by empirical research, although obtaining and evaluating relevant empirical evidence often requires interdisciplinary collaboration.
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1552956.16846
The uses of the word “ideology” are so divergent as to
make it doubtful that there is any conceptual unity to the term. It
may refer to a comprehensive worldview, a legitimating discourse, a
partisan political doctrine, culture, false beliefs that help support
illegitimate power, beliefs that reinforce group identity, or
mystification. It is often used pejoratively, but just as often it is
a purely descriptive term. When authors criticize ideology, they may
be criticizing complicity with injustice, confirmation bias,
illusions, self-serving justifications, or dogmatism. When authors
identify ideology, they may locate it in forms of consciousness,
propositional attitudes, culture, institutions, discourses, social
conventions, or material rituals.
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1604727.168466
As always, please ‘like’ this post via the heart below and restack it on notes if you get something out of it. It’s the best way to help others find my work. Of course, the very best way to support my work is with a paid subscription. …
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1696702.168471
This paper examines the tension between the growing algorithmic control in safety-critical societal contexts—motivated by human cognitive fallibility—and the rise of probabilistic types of AI, primarily in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs). Although both human cognition and LLMs exhibit inherent uncertainty and occasional unreliability, some futurist visions of the “Singularity” paradoxically advocate relinquishing control of the main societal processes–including critical ones–to these probabilistic AI agents, heightening the risks of a resulting unpredictable or “whimsical” governance. As an alternative, a “mediated control” framework is proposed here: a more prudent alternative wherein LLM-AGIs are strategically employed as “meta-programmers” to design sophisticated–but fundamentally deterministic–algorithms and procedures, or, in general, powerful rule-based solutions. It is these algorithms or procedures, executed on classical computing infrastructure and under human oversight, the systems to be deployed–based on human deliberative decision processes–as the actual controllers of critical systems and processes. This constitutes a way to harness AGI creativity for algorithmic innovation while maintaining essential reliability, predictability, and human accountability of the processes controlled by the algorithms so produced. The framework emphasizes a division of labor between the LLM-AGI and the algorithms it devises, a rigorous verification and validation protocols as conditions for safe algorithm generation, and a mediated application of the algorithms. Such an approach is not a guaranteed solution to the challenges of advanced AI, but–it is argued–it offers a more human-aligned, risk-mitigated, and ultimately more beneficial path towards integrating AGI into societal governance, possibly leading to a safer future, while preserving essential domains of human freedom and agency.
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1706987.168478
I’ve been watching the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” lately. The series is an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same title. For the readers who have never heard about it, this dystopia takes place in the context of worldwide infertility where the United States of America has disappeared following a civil war. …
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1795109.168483
According to the model of exchange as mutual assistance, an exchange can be perceived as a joint activity for mutual benefit – and needn’t involve any self-directed motives at all. This essay pushes back against this new defence of market motives. The essay develops an alternative ideal of production as caring solidarity, in which production is a joint activity of caring about one another. Points of overlap and difference are developed in some detail. The essay concludes by discussing the implications for an economics of caring solidarity, with discussion of the limitations of various market socialist strategies.
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1811743.168491
For Karl Marx, ideological forms of consciousness are false, but how and in what respects? Ideologies must include some beliefs in order to be false, even if not all the beliefs that are inferentially related in the ideology are false, and even if there are (causally) related attitudes in the ideology that are neither true nor false. “Ideological” beliefs, however, are not simply false; their falsity has the specific property of not being in the interests of the agents who accept the ideology. One can make two kinds of mistakes about interests. One can mistake what is in one’s intrinsic interest or one can mistake what is in one’s extrinsic interest (that is, the means required to realize one’s intrinsic interests). Marx is mostly, but not exclusively, focused on mistakes about extrinsic interests; this is important in understanding how “morality” (which is not a matter of beliefs, but attitudes) can be ideological for Marx. I illustrate this analysis with some of Marx’s paradigmatic examples of ideological mistakes and offer an account of Marx’s conception of “interests.”
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1855763.168499
Attachment is deeply important to human life. When one person becomes ‘attached’ to another, their sense of security turns on their emotional, social, and physical engagement with that person. This kind of security-based attachment has been extensively studied in psychology. Yet attachment theory (in the specific sense studied by psychologists) has not received adequate attention in analytic theories of social justice. In this paper, we conceptualize attachment’s nature and value, addressing when and why attachments place justice-based claims on individuals and institutions, in an attempt to establish the centrality of attachment theory to liberal political philosophy. We first characterize security-based attachment and differentiate it from related phenomena (§1). We then explore its value, theorizing the connection between attachment, care, and companionship, drawing on the ethics of care (§2). We explain when and why security-based attachment generates claims of justice within liberal theory, noting some important difficulties (§3). Finally, we sketch some implications in three domains: the rights of those who have suffered pregnancy loss, the rights of grandparents vis-à-vis grandchildren, and the rights of attached friends to social and political recognition (§4).
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1869712.168513
Although several accounts of scientific understanding exist, the concept of understanding in relation to technology remains underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a philosophical account of technological understanding—the type of understanding that is required for and reflected by successfully designing and using technological artefacts. We develop this notion by building on the concept of scientific understanding. Drawing on parallels between science and technology, and specifically between scientific theories and technological artefacts, we extend the idea of scientific understanding into the realm of technology. We argue that, just as scientific understanding involves the ability to explain a phenomenon using a theory, technological understanding involves the ability to use a technological artefact to realise a practical aim.
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1869755.168521
This paper examines cases in which an individual’s misunderstanding improves the scientific community’s understanding via “corrective” processes that produce understanding from poor epistemic inputs. To highlight the unique features of valuable misunderstandings and corrective processes, we contrast them with other social-epistemological phenomena including testimonial understanding, collective understanding, Longino’s critical contextual empiricism, and knowledge from falsehoods.
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2078969.168527
If Moby Dick overflows with boundless energy, the narration in Billy Budd, written at the other end of Melville’s life, is carefully controlled. But neither book can simply tell its tale; both are driven by a need to pause over each moment’s significance, psychological, political, and spiritual. …
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2100584.168532
Motivational trade-off behaviours, where an organism behaves as if flexibly weighing up an opportunity for reward against a risk of injury, are often regarded as evidence that the organism has valenced experiences like pain. This type of evidence has been influential in shifting opinion regarding crabs and insects. Critics note that (i) the precise links between trade-offs and consciousness are not fully known; (ii) simple trade-offs are evinced by the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, mediated by a mechanism plausibly too simple to support conscious experience; (iii) pain can sometimes interfere with rather than support making trade-offs rationally. However, rather than undermining trade-off evidence in general, such cases show that the nature of the trade-off, and its underlying neural substrate, matter. We investigate precisely how.