ExcerptFew U.S. Supreme Court decisions in living memory have combined a widespread expectation in verdict with a broad aggrievement of impact as dynamically as SFFA v. Harvard. Anyone remotely concerned with the fortunes of higher education in North America would have had good reason to believe, on or before June 29, 2023, that the “special consideration” of race in university admissions had reached its best-buy date. The key predictive decisions twenty years earlier—Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger—tolled the clock. (...) In the Bollinger cases, several justices opined that, a quarter century out, affirmative action policies might no longer be necessary in university admissions to even the score for the racially disadvantaged. The majority in SFFA changed might to must with five years to spare. (shrink)

After clarifying the probabilistic conception of causality suggested by Good (1961-2), Suppes (1970), Cartwright (1979), and Skyrms (1980), we prove a sufficient condition for transitivity of causal chains. The bearing of these considerations on the units of selection problem in evolutionary theory and on the Newcomb paradox in decision theory is then discussed.

One of us (Eells 1982) has defended traditional evidential decision theory against prima facie Newcomb counterexamples by assuming that a common cause forms a conjunctive fork with its joint effects. In this paper, the evidential theory is defended without this assumption. The suggested rationale shows that the theory's assumptions are not about the nature of causality, but about the nature of rational deliberation. These presuppositions are weak enough for the argument to count as a strong justification of the evidential theory.

The standard representation theorem for expected utility theory tells us that if a subject’s preferences conform to certain axioms, then she can be represented as maximising her expected utility given a particular set of credences and utilities—and, moreover, that having those credences and utilities is the only way that she could be maximising her expected utility. However, the kinds of agents these theorems seem apt to tell us anything about are highly idealised, being always probabilistically coherent with infinitely precise degrees (...) of belief and full knowledge of all a priori truths. Ordinary subjects do not look very rational when compared to the kinds of agents usually talked about in decision theory. In this paper, I will develop an expected utility representation theorem aimed at the representation of those who are neither probabilistically coherent, logically omniscient, nor expected utility maximisers across the board—that is, agents who are frequently irrational. The agents in question may be deductively fallible, have incoherent credences, limited representational capacities, and fail to maximise expected utility for all but a limited class of gambles. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey's ‘Truth and Probability’ sketches a proposal for the empirical measurement of credences, along with a corresponding set of axioms for a representation theorem intended to characterize the preference conditions under which this measurement process is applicable. There are several features of Ramsey's formal system which make it attractive and worth developing. However, in specifying his measurement process and his axioms, Ramsey introduces the notion of an ethically neutral proposition, the assumed existence of which plays a key role throughout (...) Ramsey's system. A number of later representation theorems have also appealed to ethically neutral propositions. The notion of ethical neutrality has often been called into question — in fact, there seem to be good reasons to suppose that no ethically neutral propositions exist. In this paper, I present several new, Ramsey-inspired representation theorems that avoid any appeal to ethical neutrality. These theorems preserve the benefits of Ramsey's system, without paying the cost of ethical neutrality. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is a paper based on research with the LGBTIQ+ community in South Australia, the likes of which has not been conducted previously in the state. The paper, which utilized both quantitative and qualitative research methods identifies the key issues that the LGBTIQ+ community face with respect to sporting involvement. There were a range of themes that emerged in relation to a variety of topics including homophobia, sexism and gender discrimination, gender roles and gender stereotypes. This paper provides data and (...) discussion around this important part of the research, which has implications pertaining to sporting organizations and the LGBTIQ+ community. (shrink)

Mainstream economics evaluates capitalism primarily from the perspective of efficiency. Social philosophy typically applies other or additional normative criteria, such as equality, democracy, and community. This essay examines the implications of these contrasting sets of criteria in the evaluation of capitalism. Its first two sections consider the criteria themselves, assuming that a trade-off exists between them. The last three sections question whether such a trade-off necessarily occurs, and explore the claim that improvements in nonefficiency dimensions of capitalist society may enhance, (...) rather than conflict with, efficiency. (shrink)

Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical (in)dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...) The directions of causal/explanatory relations in our world seem not to depend on the statistical (in)dependence relations in our world (conceived of either as frequency patterns or as relations among chances). Thus, we doubt that statistical (in)dependence relations are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. (shrink)

Scholars have long debated how exactly Aristotle thinks that agents acquire the distinctive archai (“principles” or “starting‐points”) that govern their practical reasoning. The debate has traditionally been dominated by anti‐intellectualists, who hold that for Aristotle all agents acquire their archai solely through a process of habituation in the nonrational soul. Their traditional opponents, the intellectualists, focus their argument on the case of the virtuous person, arguing that in Aristotle’s view virtuous agents acquire their archai through a process of reasoning. I (...) intervene in this debate in two main ways: first, I press a heretofore underappreciated objection against anti‐intellectualism, that it is inconsistent with Aristotle’s account of akrasia; and second, I urge that all sides in the debate would benefit from more sustained attention to Aristotle’s nonvirtuous character types. In the final section, I suggest that proper consideration of the full breadth of Aristotle’s account of character points in the direction of a new approach that I call “character pluralism,” according to which Aristotle’s moral psychology does not involve a single conception of psychic structure or moral development that is equally applicable to all character types. (shrink)

When does self-interest counsel cooperation? This question pertains both to the labile behaviors produced by rational deliberation and to the more instinctive and fixed behaviors produced by natural selection. In both cases, a standard starting point for the investigation is the one-shot prisoners' dilemma. In this game, each player has the option of producing one or the other of two behaviors. The pay-offs to the row player are as follows.

Prima facie the norms of natural-teleology conflict with norms of morality and rationality. Morality often rejects behaviours that can promote natural-success, and we can have reasons to act in ways that conflict with natural-imperatives. That’s a problem for Attributivism, which dictates that what one ought to do is exhausted in satisfying the standards of one’s kind, and thus that members of natural-kinds ought ultimately to do that which is naturally good. I argue that standard responses are inadequate. I argue further (...) however that the impression of conflict owes to a failure to appreciate the context-sensitivity and holistic interdependence of natural-norms. Natural-norms fluctuate relative to circumstance and to the needs of overall flourishing; once that’s clearly understood, not only does the impression of conflict between natural and moral/rational norms resolve, but we find Attributivism plausibly explains many rational/moral practices/intuitions. (shrink)

This paper begins with a puzzle regarding Lewis' theory of radical interpretation. On the one hand, Lewis convincingly argued that the facts about an agent's sensory evidence and choices will always underdetermine the facts about her beliefs and desires. On the other hand, we have several representation theorems—such as those of (Ramsey 1931) and (Savage 1954)—that are widely taken to show that if an agent's choices satisfy certain constraints, then those choices can suffice to determine her beliefs and desires. In (...) this paper, I will argue that Lewis' conclusion is correct: choices radically underdetermine beliefs and desires, and representation theorems provide us with no good reasons to think otherwise. Any tension with those theorems is merely apparent, and relates ultimately to the difference between how 'choices' are understood within Lewis' theory and the problematic way that they're represented in the context of the representation theorems. For the purposes of radical interpretation, representation theorems like Ramsey's and Savage's just aren't very relevant after all. (shrink)

The biological effects of low doses of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are currently a matter of significant scientific controversy. This paper argues that philosophers of science can contribute to alleviating this controversy by examining it with the aid of a novel account of scientific anomaly. Specifically, analysis of contemporary research on chemical hormesis (i.e., alleged beneficial biological effects produced by low doses of substances that are harmful at higher doses) suggests that scientists may initially describe anomalous phenomena in terms of (...) multiple distinct "characterizations," each of which is compatible with current empirical evidence. By focusing attention on this feature of scientific anomalies, philosophers of science can alleviate the controversy over low-dose chemical effects in at least two ways: (1) they can pinpoint the significant ways in which particular characterizations frame the controversy, and (2) they can identify the methodological value judgments at stake in researchers' choice of characterizations. (shrink)

Steffen Ganghof’s book addresses pressing questions in democratic theory and institutional design regarding how to promote effective political inclusion and avoid personalizing power in democratic executives. His model of semi-parliamentarism manages to transform tradeoffs in these areas that were previously thought inescapable, unlocking novel potential for democratic reform.

Individuals with a variety of disabilities benefit greatly from the ADA provision of easy public access with their service dogs. However, the growing problem of non-disabled individuals passing off their pets as service dogs both threatens public safety and can result in denial of access for legitimate service dog teams. We argue that requiring certification of service dog teams and furnishing qualified teams with state-issued ID tags, following a process similar to that for obtaining accessible-parking placards, is the least intrusive (...) way to protect access for legitimate teams and protect public safety. While some consider a certification requirement for service dog teams to be burdensome, balanced against the harms posed by easy public access for untrained or inappropriate dogs, the mild burden is justified. (shrink)

In ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, Quine attacks the analytic/synthetic distinction and defends a doctrine that I call epistemological holism. Now, almost fifty years after the article’s appearance, what are we to make of these ideas? I suggest that the philosophical naturalism that Quine did so much to promote should lead us to reject Quine’s brief against the analytic/synthetic distinction; I also argue that Quine misunderstood Carnap's views on analyticity. As for epistemological holism, I claim that this thesis does not follow (...) from the logical point that Duhem and Quine made about the role of auxiliary assumptions in hypothesis testing, and that the thesis should be rejected. (shrink)

Jun Otsuka’s excellent book, Thinking about Statistics - the Philosophical Foundations (Otsuka 2023) is mostly organized around the idea that different statistical approaches can be illuminated by linking them to different ideas in general epistemology. Otsuka connects Bayesianism to internalism and foundationalism, frequentism to reliabilism, and the Akaike Information Criterion in model selection theory to instrumentalism. This useful mapping doesn’t cover all the interesting ideas he presents. His discussions of causal inference and machine learning are philosophically insightful, as is his (...) idea that statisticians embrace an assumption that is similar to Hume’s Principle of the Uniformity of Nature. I discuss these topics in what follows, sometimes disagreeing with details while at other times adding ideas that complement those presented in the book. (shrink)