The philosophy of measurement studies the conceptual, ontological, epistemic, and technological conditions that make measurement possible and reliable. A new wave of philosophical scholarship has emerged in the last decade that emphasizes the material and historical dimensions of measurement and the relationships between measurement and theoretical modeling. This essay surveys these developments and contrasts them with earlier work on the semantics of quantity terms and the representational character of measurement. The conclusions highlight four characteristics of the emerging research program in (...) philosophy of measurement: it is epistemological, coherentist, practice oriented, and model based. (shrink)

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of (...) small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. Key Words: altruism; cooperation; cross-cultural research; experimental economics; game theory; ultimatum game; public goods game; self-interest. (shrink)

The conduct of most of social science occurs outside the laboratory. Such studies in field science explore phenomena that cannot for practical, technical, or ethical reasons be explored under controlled conditions. These phenomena cannot be fully isolated from their environment or investigated by manipulation or intervention. Yet measurement, including rigorous or clinical measurement, does provide analysts with a sound basis for discerning what occurs under field conditions, and why. In Science Outside the Laboratory, Marcel Boumans explores the state of measurement (...) theory, its reliability, and the role expert judgment plays in field investigations from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Its discussion of the problems of passive observation, the calculus of observation, the two-model problem, and model-based consensus uses illustrations drawn primarily from economics. Rich in research and discussion, the volume clarifies the extent to which measurement provides valid information about objects and events in field sciences, but also has implications for measurement in the laboratory. Scholars in the fields of philosophy of science, social science, and economics will find Science Outside the Laboratory a compelling and informative read. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFrom its origins in antiquity to the emergence of neoliberalism, democracy had always been thought of as a fragile institutional construct, comprising two complementary dimensions: an objective dimension, and a subjective one. Appeared in the 1970s, the Law and economic doctrine has undermined this bases of democracy by assimilating the enactment of laws to negotiation on a market, and reducing democracy to a ‘market of ideas’. The specific status of speech in the democratic area fades out, paving the way for (...) ‘post-truth politics’ and ‘democratic dictatorships’. (shrink)

The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value is estimated to be in the range of (...) US$16-54 trillion per year, with an average of US$33 trillion per year. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, this must be considered a minimum estimate. Global gross national product total is around US$18 trillion per year. (shrink)

Contingent Valuation has been promoted as a catch-all approach to environmental valuation. While there have been numerous attempts in recent years to place monetary values on environmental amenities, studies have often reported a high frequency of protest, zero or inordinately large dollar-value responses. This paper reports on the results of a survey designed to obtain information on how people actually interpret questions of paying to avoid changes in their views of Rangitoto Island. Evidence suggests that the meaning respondents attach to (...) the actual dollar values they offer or bid are inconsistent with the conventional logic that underlies Contingent Valuation. Instead, respondents might be seen to be expressing views about how things ought to be in society, and that it is simply not right to develop Rangitoto Island. (shrink)

The metrology literature neglects a strong empirical measurement tradition in economics, which is different from the traditions as accounted for by the formalist representational theory of measurement. This empirical tradition comes closest to Mari's characterization of measurement in which he describes measurement results as informationally adequate to given goals. In economics, one has to deal with soft systems, which induces problems of invariance and of self-awareness. It will be shown that in the empirical economic measurement tradition both problems have been (...) on the agenda for a long while, and that the proposed solutions to these problems provide clues for the directions in which one could develop a measurement theory that takes account of soft systems. (shrink)