This article takes the stance that the subjectivity of the researcher is an integral part of the research process. It should be studied as a key to understanding the interrelational processes of meaning in an interview situation. The article demonstrates how the subjectivity of the researcher can be made accessible methodologically and methodically by combining a psychodynamic approach with an autoethnographic approach. The methodical question is therefore how the researcher can conduct introspection and at the same time reflect upon and (...) analyse the central object of investigation. The approach is psychoanalytically informed, but autoethnography became the actual vehicle for moving beyond reflections on the psychodynamics represented in the texts. The researcher ventured into an introspection of not only the texts, but also her own feelings, fantasies, and bodily experiences at the time of the interview and also when bringing the data into new situations. The abstract reflections after the interview situation were left for a while, and instead a more experiential and sensual/bodily understanding appeared, based on narratives, feelings, and reflections from the research field. In doing so, the affective and experiential personal process became an important step in the interpretation. (shrink)

When is it morally acceptable to expose others to risk? Most moral philosophers have had very little to say in answer to that question, but here is a moral philosopher who puts it at the centre of his investigations.

This article is an attempt at a systematic account of decision making under greater uncertainty than what traditional, mathematically oriented decision theory can cope with. Four components of great uncertainty are distinguished: (1) the identity of the options is not well determined (uncertainty of demarcation) ; (2) the consequences of at least some option are unknown (uncertainty of consequences); (3) it is not clear whether information obtained from others, such as experts, can be relied on (uncertainty of reliance); and (4) (...) the values relevant for the decision are not determined with sufficient precision (uncertainty of values). Some possible strategy types are proposed for each of these components. Decisions related to environmental issues are used to illustrate the proposals. (shrink)

In order to explore the quantifiability and formalizability of uncertainty a wide range of uncertainties are investigated. They are summarized under eight main categories: factual, possibilistic, metadoxastic, agential, interactive, value, structural, and linguistic uncertainty. This includes both classical uncertainty and the uncertainties commonly called great, deep, or radical. For five of the eight types of uncertainty, both quantitative and non-quantitative formalizations are meaningful and available. For one of them (interactive uncertainty), only non-quantitative formalizations seem to be meaningful, and for two (...) (agential and structural uncertainty) neither quantitative nor non-quantitative formalization seems to be a useful approach. (shrink)

Formal representations of values and norms are employed in several academic disciplines and specialties, such as economics, jurisprudence, decision theory and social choice theory. Sven Ove Hansson closely examines such foundational issues as the values of wholes and the values of their parts, the connections between values and norms, how values can be decision-guiding and the structure of normative codes with formal precision. Models of change in both preferences and norms are offered, as well as a method to base (...) the logic of norms on that of preferences. Hansson has developed a unified formal representation of values and norms that reflects both their static and their dynamic properties. This formalized treatment, carried out in terms of both informal value theory and precise logical detail, will contribute to the clarification of certain issues in the basic philosophical theory of values and norms. (shrink)

–Whether celebratory or critical, STS research on science-industry relations has focused on the blurring of boundaries and hybridization of codes and practices. However, the vocabulary of boundary and hybrid tends to reify science and industry as separate in the attempt to map their relation. Drawing on interviews with the head of a research center in plant biology, this article argues that biology and biotech are symbionts. In order to be viable and productive, symbiosis needs to be carefully managed and given (...) room for divergence within mutual dependence. This process does not take place as the negotiation of a preexisting science-industry boundary. Rather, viability is obtained through a strategy of circumventing the science-industry food chain and sequestering biotech components within the research center. Symbiosis allows academic scientists to do biology while at the same time demonstrating entrepreneurial spirit. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, I clear the ground from frequent misconceptions of the relationship between fact and value by examining some uses of the adjective “natural” in ethical controversies. Such uses bear evidence to our “natural” tendency to regard nature as the source of ethical norms. I then try to account for the origins of this tendency by offering three related explanations, the most important of which is evolutionistic: if any behaviour that favours our equilibrium with the (...) environment is potentially adaptive, nothing can be more effective for this goal than developing an attitude toward the natural world that considers it as a dispenser of sacred norms that must be invariably respected. By referring to the Aristotelian notion of human flourishing illustrated in the first part of the paper, in the second I discuss as a case study some ethical problems raised by mini-chips implantable in our bodies. I conclude by defending their potential beneficial effects of such new technological instruments. (shrink)

: In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how her scope has broadened with the addition of psychoanalytical theory and practice. She answers questions about her work on the abject, melancholy, motherhood, and love, and reveals how personal experiences, like the death of her father, have shaped parts of her literary (...) output. (shrink)

In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how her scope has broadened with the addition of psychoanalytical theory and practice. She answers questions about her work on the abject, melancholy, motherhood, and love, and reveals how personal experiences, like the death of her father, have shaped parts of her literary output.

BackgroundHuman embryonic stem cells as a source for the development of advanced therapy medicinal products are considered for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Research has shown promising results and opened an avenue of great importance for patients who currently lack a disease modifying therapy. The use of hESC has given rise to moral concerns and been the focus of often heated debates on the moral status of human embryos. Approval for marketing is still pending.ObjectiveTo Investigate the perspectives and concerns of patients (...) with PD, patients being the directly concerned stakeholders in the ethical discussion.MethodsQualitative semi-structured interviews related to this new therapy in seventeen patients from two Swedish cities.ResultsThe participants expressed various interests related to the use of human embryos for development of medicinal therapies; however, overall, they were positive towards the use of hESC for treatment of PD. It was deemed important that the donating woman or couple made the choice to donate embryos voluntarily. Furthermore, there were concerns that the industry does not always prioritise the patient over profit; thus, transparency was seen as important. (shrink)

The precautionary principle has often been described as an extreme principle that neglects science and stifles innovation. However, such an interpretation has no support in the official definitions of the principle that have been adopted by the European Union and by the signatories of international treaties on environmental protection. In these documents, the precautionary principle is a guideline specifying how to deal with certain types of scientific uncertainty. In this contribution, this approach to the precautionary principle is explicated with the (...) help of concepts from the philosophy of science and comparisons with general notions of practical rationality. Three major problems in its application are discussed, and it is concluded that to serve its purpose, the precautionary principle has to (1) be combined with other decision principles in cases with competing top priorities, (2) be based on the current state of science, which requires procedures for scientific updates, and (3) exclude potential dangers whose plausibility is too low to trigger meaningful precautionary action. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen des Modellvorhabens „Patienten als Partner—Tumorpatienten und ihr Mitwirken bei medizinischen Entscheidungen“ wurden zwischen März 2002 und August 2003 272 palliativ behandelte Tumorpatienten nach ihrer Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und zur gewünschten Beteiligung an medizinischen Entscheidungen befragt. Von den Befragten kannten 30% Patientenverfügungen nicht, darunter signifikant mehr Befragte mit formal niedrigerem Bildungsabschluss. Es hatten bereits 11% eine Patientenverfügung abgeschlossen, 22% wollten wahrscheinlich eine abschließen, und 30% wollten keine abschließen. Es fand sich ein statistisch signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen dem Abschluss einer Patientenverfügung (...) und dem Wunsch nach mehr eigener Entscheidungsverantwortung. Die Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und der Wunsch nach partizipativer Entscheidungsfindung stehen in keinem statistisch signifikanten Zusammenhang. Patienten mit schriftlichen Vorausverfügungen haben einen erhöhten Kommunikations- und Rückkopplungsbedarf, auf den Ärzte sensibel eingehen sollten. Bei der Information über Patientenverfügungen sollten Menschen mit niedrigerem Bildungsstand mehr als bisher berücksichtigt werden. (shrink)

Healthcare depends increasingly on advanced medical technology. In addition, other forms of technology contribute to determine how our lives are influenced by disease and disability. The extent to which persons with impaired bodily functions are forced to live their lives differently than other people depends to a large part on a variety of technologies, from wheelchairs to computer interfaces, from hearing aids to garage doors. This wide-ranging influence of technology has important ethical aspects, but has seldom been discussed in bioethics, (...) the ethics of technology, or other branches of applied ethics. (shrink)

The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbable dilemma-like scenarios. This article provides a broad overview of realistic ethical issues related to self-driving vehicles. Some of the major topics covered are as follows: Strong opinions for and against driverless cars may give rise to severe social and political conflicts. A low tolerance for accidents caused by driverless vehicles may delay the introduction of driverless systems (...) that would substantially reduce the risks. Trade-offs will arise between safety and other requirement on the road traffic system. Over-reliance on the swift collision-avoiding reactions of self-driving vehicles can induce people to take dangerous actions, such as stepping out in front of a car, relying on its fast braking. Children travelling alone can violate safety instructions such as the use of seatbelts. Digital information about routes and destinations can be used to convey commercial and political messages to car users. If fast passage can be bought, then socio-economic segregation of road traffic may result. Terrorists and other criminals can hack into a vehicle and make it crash. They can also use self-driving vehicles for instance to carry bombs to their designed places of detonation or to wreak havoc on a country’s road system. (shrink)

Due to modern biochemistry and, in particular, recent developments in genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics, human samples have become the most important raw materials for advancement in the health sciences. Such material has been at the center of fundamental biomedical research for a long time. What is new is its increased usefulness in research with direct clinical relevance, such as the development of drugs. Because of the larger commercial involvement in such research, this has also led to greater economic interests in (...) human biological material and in the information that can be extracted from it. (shrink)

The relatively new discipline of risk analysis promises to provide objective guidance in some of the most controversial issues in modern high‐technology societies. Four conditions are discussed that must be satisfied for this promise to be fulfilled. Since none of these conditions is satisfied, risk analysis does not keep its promise. In its attempts to reduce genuinely political issues to technocratic calculations, it neglects many of the factors that should influence decisions on risk acceptance. A list of tentative guidelines is (...) given for numerical decision support that encourages democratic decision‐making instead of trying to evade it. (shrink)

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is much more philosophically interesting than has in general been recognized. Since it is the only well-developed form of applied consequentialism, it is a testing-ground for consequentialism and for the counterfactual analysis that it requires. Ten classes of philosophical problems that affect the practical performance of cost–benefit analysis are investigated: topic selection, dependence on the decision perspective, dangers of super synopticism and undue centralization, prediction problems, the indeterminateness of our control over future decisions, the need to exclude (...) certain consequences for moral reasons, bias in the delimitation of consequences, incommensurability of consequences, difficulties in defending the essential requirement of transferability across contexts, and the normatively questionable but equally essential assumption of interpersonal compensability. (Published Online July 31 2007). (shrink)

In 1974, a wonderful little book came out entitled Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague, edited by Richmond H. Thomason. The book was a beautiful testimony to the fact that formal methods may indeed clarify, sharpen and solve philosophical problems, defusing airy philosophical intuitions in clear, crisp and concise ways while at the same time turning philosophical wonder into scientific inquiry.

In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how her scope has broadened with the addition of psychoanalytical theory and practice. She answers questions about her work on the abject, melancholy, motherhood, and love, and reveals how personal experiences, like the death of her father, have shaped parts of her literary output.

Close connections between probability theory and the theory of belief change emerge if the codomain of probability functions is extended from the real-valued interval [0, 1] to a hyperreal interval with the same limits. Full beliefs are identified as propositions with a probability at most infinitesimally smaller than 1. Full beliefs can then be given up, and changes in the set of full beliefs follow a pattern very close to that of AGM revision. In this contribution, iterated revision is investigated. (...) The iterated changes in the set of full beliefs generated by repeated revisions of a hyperreal probability function can, semantically, be modelled with the same basic structure as the sphere models of belief change theory. The changes on the set of full beliefs induced by probability revision satisfy the Darwiche–Pearl postulates for iterated belief change. (shrink)

This article offers a perspective on the role of philosophy in relation to other academic disciplines and to society in general. Among the issues treated are the delimitation of philosophy, whether it is a science, its role in the community of knowledge disciplines, its losses of subject matter to other disciplines, how it is influenced by social changes and by progress in other disciplines, and its role in interdisciplinary work. It is concluded that philosophy has an important mission in promoting (...) clarity, precision, and open‐mindedness in academic research and in society at large. (shrink)

Can institutional objects be identified with physical objects that have been ascribed status functions, as advocated by John Searle in The Construction of Social Reality (1995)? The paper argues that the prospects of this identification hinge on how objects persist – i.e., whether they endure, perdure or exdure through time. This important connection between reductive identification and mode of persistence has been largely ignored in the literature on social ontology thus far.

Three of the bioethical issues recently discussed in Sweden appear to be particularly interesting also to an international audience. A new law allowing restrictive use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis /human leukocyte antigen () has been implemented, a new recommendation for the cessation of life-sustaining treatment has been issued, and the scope of individual responsibility for medical mistakes has been rather thoroughly discussed.

Saying so can make it so, J. L. Austin taught us long ago. Famously, John Searle has developed this Austinian insight in an account of the construction of institutional reality. Searle maintains that so-called Status Function Declarations, allegedly having a “double direction of fit”, synchronically create worldly institutional facts, corresponding to the propositional content of the declarations. I argue that Searle’s account of the making of institutional reality is in tension with the special theory of relativity—irrespective of whether the account (...) is interpreted as involving causal generation or non-causal grounding of worldly institutional facts—and should be replaced by a more modest theory which interprets the results of Status Function Declarations in terms of mere Cambridge change and institutional truth. I end the paper by indicating the import of this more modest theory for theorizing about the causal potency of institutional phenomena generated by declarations. (shrink)

Mainstream moral theories deal with situations in which the outcome of each possible action is well-determined and knowable. In order to make ethics relevant for problems of risk and uncertainty, moral theories have to be extended so that they cover actions whose outcomes are not determinable beforehand. One approach to this extension problem is to develop methods for appraising probabilistic combinations of outcomes. This approach is investigated and shown not to solve the problem. An alternative approach is then developed. Its (...) starting-point is that everyone has a prima facie moral right not to be exposed to risk. However, this right can be overridden if the risk-exposure is part of an equitable system for risk-taking that works to the advantage of the individual risk-exposed person. (shrink)

Implant ethics is defined here as the study of ethical aspects of the lasting introduction of technological devices into the human body. Whereas technological implants relieve us of some of the ethical problems connected with transplantation, other difficulties arise that are in need of careful analysis. A systematic approach to implant ethics is proposed. The major specific problems are identified as those concerning end of life issues (turning off devices), enhancement of human capabilities beyond normal levels, mental changes and personal (...) identity, and cultural effects. (shrink)

In a decision making context, an agent’s uncertainty can be either epistemic, i.e. due to her lack of knowledge, or agentive, i.e. due to her not having made use of her decision-making power. In cases when it is unclear whether or not a decision maker presently has control over her own future actions, it is difficult to determine whether her uncertainty is epistemic or agentive. Such situations are often difficult for the agent to deal with, but from an outsider’s perspective, (...) they can have sensible pragmatic solutions. (shrink)

In Elder-Vass’s response to my it is maintained: that a social object is not identical with but is merely composed of its suitably interrelated parts; that a social object is necessarily indistinguishable in terms of its causal capacities from its interrelated parts; and that ontological individualism lacks an adequate ontological justification. In this reply, I argue that in view of the so-called redescription principle defended by Elder-Vass ought to be reformulated and renamed; that the conjunction of and renders social objects (...) causally redundant; and that ontological individualism can be coherently formulated and theoretically justified within Elder-Vass’s own metaphysics of objects with causal powers. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in (...) social realm. (shrink)

A definition of pseudoscience is proposed, according to which a statement is pseudoscientific if and only if it (1) pertains to an issue within the domains of science, (2) is not epistemically warranted, and (3) is part of a doctrine whose major proponents try to create the impression that it is epistemically warranted. This approach has the advantage of separating the definition of pseudoscience from the justification of the claim that science represents the most epistemically warranted statements. The definition is (...) used to explain why proponents of widely divergent criteria for the demarcation between science and pseudoscience tend to be in almost complete agreement on the particular demarcations that should presumably be based on these general criteria. (shrink)

We define an evolutionary process of “economic Darwinism” for playing the field, symmetric games. The process captures two forces. One is “economic selection”: if current behavior leads to payoff differences, behavior yielding lowest payoff has strictly positive probability of being replaced by an arbitrary behavior. The other is “mutation”: any behavior has at any point in time a strictly positive, very small probability of shifting to an arbitrary behavior. We show that behavior observed frequently is in accordance with “evolutionary equilibrium”, (...) a static equilibrium concept suggested in the literature. Using this result, we demonstrate that generally under positive (negative) externalities, economic Darwinism implies even more under- (over-)activity than does Nash equilibrium. (shrink)

This article investigates the properties of multistate top revision, a dichotomous model of belief revision that is based on an underlying model of probability revision. A proposition is included in the belief set if and only if its probability is either 1 or infinitesimally close to 1. Infinitesimal probabilities are used to keep track of propositions that are currently considered to have negligible probability, so that they are available if future information makes them more plausible. Multistate top revision satisfies a (...) slightly modified version of the set of basic and supplementary AGM postulates, except the inclusion and success postulates. This result shows that hyperreal probabilities can provide us with efficient tools for overcoming the well known difficulties in combining dichotomous and probabilistic models of belief change. (shrink)

It has been much debated whether epistemic relativism in academia, for instance in the form of social constructivism, the strong programme, deconstructionism, and postmodernism, has paved the way for the recent upsurge in science denial, in particular climate science denial. In order to provide an empirical basis for this discussion, an extensive search of the social science literature was performed. It showed that in the 1990s, climate science was a popular target among academic epistemic relativists. In particular, many STS scholars (...) used it as an allegedly clear example of claims by natural scientists that should be treated as mere social constructions, rather than as reports on the actual state of the natural world. A few connections between social constructivists and corporate science denialism were also uncovered, but the extent of such connections could not be determined. With few exceptions, the stream of criticism of climate science from academic relativists has dwindled since the 1990s. One reason for this seems to be that the contrarian position lost its attraction when it became associated with corporate and right-wing propagandists. (shrink)

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce both the concept of risk and the precautionary principle, that is a major policy principle in present-day risk management. Since risk has been the subject of many misconceptions I will do this in large part by criticizing seven views on risk that I believe to have caused considerable confusion both among scientists and policy-makers. But before looking at the seven myths of risk, let us begin with the basic issue of defining “risk”. (...) The word “risk” often refers, rather vaguely, to situations in which it is possible but not certain that some undesirable event will occur. In addition, the word has several more specialized meanings. Let me illustrate this by making a few statements about the single most important preventable health hazard in non-starving countries. First: “Lung cancer is one of the major risks that affect smokers.” Here, we use “risk” in the following sense: (1) risk = an unwanted event which may or may not occur. 1 (15). (shrink)

The maximin rule can be used as a formal version of the precautionary principle. This paper evaluates the feasibility and the intuitive plausibility of this decision rule. The major conclusions are: (1) Precaution has to be applied symmetrically. (2) Precaution is only possible when outcomes are comparable in terms of value, so that it can be determined which outcome is worst. (3) Precaution is sensitive to standards of possibility. Far-away scenarios have to be excluded, and it is difficult to find (...) a principled way to draw the line. (4) Precaution is sensitive to the framing of decision problems. Local cautiousness may add up to global incautiousness. (shrink)

A new formal model of belief dynamics is proposed, in which the epistemic agent has both probabilistic beliefs and full beliefs. The agent has full belief in a proposition if and only if she considers the probability that it is false to be so close to zero that she chooses to disregard that probability. She treats such a proposition as having the probability 1, but, importantly, she is still willing and able to revise that probability assignment if she receives information (...) that gives her sufficient reasons to do so. Such a proposition is undoubted, but not undoubtable. In the formal model it is assigned a probability 1 − δ, where δ is an infinitesimal number. The proposed model employs probabilistic belief states that contain several underlying probability functions representing alternative probabilistic states of the world. Furthermore, a distinction is made between update and revision, in the same way as in the literature on belief change. The formal properties of the model are investigated, including properties relevant for learning from experience. The set of propositions whose probabilities are infinitesimally close to 1 forms a belief set. Operations that change the probabilistic belief state give rise to changes in this belief set, which have much in common with traditional operations of belief change. (shrink)

What purpose can be served by empirically unsubstantiated speculation in ethics? In answering that question, we need to distinguish between the major branches of ethics. In foundational moral philosophy, the use of speculative examples is warranted to the extent that ethical principles and theories are assumed to be applicable even under the extreme circumstances referred to in these examples. Such an assumption is in need of justification, and it cannot just be taken for granted. In applied ethics, the use of (...) unrealistic scenarios is more difficult to justify. It can be positively harmful if it diverts our attention from more urgent issues. Neuroethics is one of the areas of applied ethics where speculative scenarios have taken up much of the attention that could instead have been devoted to problems that are relevant for the treatment and care of patients. Speculative ethics has often been defended with mere possibility arguments that may at first hand seem difficult to refute. It is shown with examples how such claims can be defeated with a combination of science and argumentation analysis. (shrink)

Many powers metaphysicians postulate both active and passive powers, understood as distinct kinds of intrinsic causal properties of objects. I argue that the category of passive power is superfluous. I also offer a diagnosis of how philosophers are misled to postulate passive powers.