The starting point of this paper concerns the apparent difference between what we might call absolute truth and truth in a model, following Donald Davidson. The notion of absolute truth is the one familiar from Tarski’s T-schema: ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. Instead of being a property of sentences as absolute truth appears to be, truth in a model, that is relative truth, is evaluated in terms of the relation between (...) sentences and models. I wish to examine the apparent dual nature of logical truth (without dwelling on Davidson), and suggest that we are dealing with a distinction between a metaphysical and a linguistic interpretation of truth. I take my cue from John Etchemendy, who suggests that absolute truth could be considered as being equivalent to truth in the ‘right model’, i.e., the model that corresponds with the world. However, the notion of ‘model’ is not entirely appropriate here as it is closely associated with relative truth. Instead, I propose that the metaphysical interpretation of truth may be illustrated in modal terms, by metaphysical modality in particular. One of the tasks that I will undertake in this paper is to develop this modal interpretation, partly building on my previous work on the metaphysical interpretation of the law of non-contradiction (Tahko 2009). After an explication of the metaphysical interpretation of logical truth, a brief study of how this interpretation connects with some recent important themes in philosophical logic follows. In particular, I discuss logical pluralism and propose an understanding of pluralism from the point of view of the metaphysical interpretation. (shrink)

The concept of metaphor as primarily a vehicle for conveying ideas, even if unusual ones, seems to me as wrong as the parent idea that a metaphor has a special meaning. I agree with the view that metaphors cannot be paraphrased, but I think this is not because metaphors say something too novel for literal expression but because there is nothing there to paraphrase. Paraphrase, whether possible or not, inappropriate to what is said: we try, in paraphrase, to say it (...) another way. But if I am right, a metaphor doesn't say anything beyond its literal meaning. This is not, of course, to deny that a metaphor has a point, nor that that point can be brought out by using further words.... My disagreement is with the explanation of how metaphor works its wonders. To anticipate: I depend on the distinction between what words mean and what they are used to do. I think metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use. It is something brought off by the imaginative employment of words and sentences and depends entirely on the ordinary meanings of those words and hence on the ordinary meanings of the sentences they comprise. Donald Davidson is University Professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many important essays, including "Actions, Reasons and Causes," "Causal Relations," and "Truth and Meaning," coauthor of Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach, and coeditor of Words and Objections, Semantics of Natural Language, and The Logic of Grammar. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that presentism has a problem accounting forthe truth of statements whose truth conditions seem to require therebe relations that hold between present and non-present objects. Imotivate the problem and then examine several strategies for dealingwith the problem. I argue that no solution is forthcoming, and thispresents a prima facie problem for presentism.

We argue that work on norms provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to bias, oppression, and injustice. We briefly map out the geography of that debate before presenting Charlotte Witt’s view, showing how her position, and the normative ascriptivism at its heart, seamlessly connects individuals to the social reality they inhabit. We then describe recent empirical work on the psychology of norms and locate the notions of informal institutions and soft structures with (...) respect to it. Finally, we argue that the empirical resources enrich Witt’s ascriptivism, and that the resulting picture shows theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp. (shrink)

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, high hopes were placed on digital contact tracing. Digital contact tracing apps can now be downloaded in many countries, but as further waves of COVID-19 tear through much of the northern hemisphere, these apps are playing a less important role in interrupting chains of infection than anticipated. We argue that one of the reasons for this is that most countries have opted for decentralised apps, which cannot provide a means of rapidly informing users (...) of likely infections while avoiding too many false positive reports. Centralised apps, in contrast, have the potential to do this. But policy making was influenced by public debates about the right app configuration, which have tended to focus heavily on privacy, and are driven by the assumption that decentralised apps are “privacy preserving by design”. We show that both types of apps are in fact vulnerable to privacy breaches, and, drawing on principles from safety engineering and risk analysis, compare the risks of centralised and decentralised systems along two dimensions, namely the probability of possible breaches and their severity. We conclude that a centralised app may in fact minimise overall ethical risk, and contend that we must reassess our approach to digital contact tracing, and should, more generally, be cautious about a myopic focus on privacy when conducting ethical assessments of data technologies. (shrink)

This is a critical notice of Theodore Sider's book, _Four-Dimensionalism_.

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411–423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary in order to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstract and difficult to implement as practical moral concerns proliferate. They call for improvements in ethics course design, focusing on real-world cases and perspective-taking tools to immerse students in challenging (...) situations with relatable personal, social and environmental implications. The present paper considers the ACTWith model of moral cognition for use in such training contexts. Morley and colleagues' paper and contemporary literature are reviewed. Whistleblowing as a source for relatable case studies is discussed, and the purpose of ethics education considered. The ACTWith model is introduced, and correlations with contemporaries noted. The ACTWith model has been successfully employed in a broad range of technology ethics courses in the Netherlands and South Korea. Illustrations are offered. Correlations with contemporary efforts are drawn in the context of software engineering. Summary discussion considers strengths and limitations of the ACTWith program. Overall, the paper emphasizes training high-level moral reasoning through guided inquiry education informing lifetime professional practice, and indicates an outstanding need for teachers able to do the job. (shrink)

This is a paper in which I argue that problems of transworld identity and the truth in-truth at distinction are motivated by unhelpful pictures we have in mind while doing metaphysics.

In a recent article, Ethan Bradley and Mark Navin (2021) argue that vaccine refusal is not akin to free riding. Here, I defend one connection between vaccine refusal and free riding and suggest that, when viewed in conjunction with their other arguments, this might constitute a reason to mandate Covid-19 vaccination.

Most direct reference theorists about indexicals and proper names have adopted the thesis that singular propositions about physical objects are composed of physical objects and properties.1 There have been a number of recent proponents of such a view, including Scott Soames, Nathan Salmon, John Perry, Howard Wettstein, and David Kaplan.2 Since Kaplan is the individual who is best known for holding such a view, let's call a proposition that is composed of objects and properties a K-proposition. In this paper, I (...) will attempt to show that a direct reference view about the content of proper names and indexicals leads very naturally to the position that all singular propositions about physical objects are K-propositions.3 Then, I will attempt to show that this view of propositions is false. I will spend the bulk of the paper on this latter task. My goal in the paper, then, is to show that adopting the direct reference thesis comes at a cost problems the view has with problems such as opacity and the significance of some identity statements; it comes at even more of a cost). (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that since (1) every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and (2) cases of causal overdetermination are rare, it follows that if (3) mental events cause physical events as frequently as they seem to, then (4) mental events must be physical in nature. In defence of (1), it is sometimes said that (1) is supported if not entailed by conservation laws. Against this, I argue that conservation laws do not lend sufficient support to (...) (1) to render its denial ‘unscientific’, and that those who accept (3) and deny (4) may consequently respond to the Exclusion Argument by denying (1) without thereby setting themselves at odds with current science. I also argue that conservation laws are compatible with (3) and the negation of (4), and that one can therefore accept conservation laws and (3) while denying both (1) and (4). (shrink)

Setting aside all exclusion-style worries about the redundancy of postulating additional, non-physical mental causes for effects that can already be explained in purely physical terms, dualists who treat mental properties as supervening on physical properties still face a further problem: in cases of mental-to-mental causation, they cannot avoid positing an implausibly coincidental coordination in the timing of the distinct causal processes terminating, respectively, in the mental effect and its physical base. I argue that this problem arises regardless of whether one (...) treats the mental cause as causing both the mental effect and its physical base, or whether one treats the latter as having instead been caused by some physical state, and that the problem also does not depend on which theory of causation one adopts. A third option of treating the mental cause and its physical base as producing the mental effect and its physical base by a single causal process that they both contribute to is found to come up short as well. (shrink)

In this paper we set out a view on which internalist proper basicality is secured by sensory experience.

First-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a proposition is true. Higher-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a person is able to assess her evidence for or against a proposition. A widespread view is that higher-order evidence makes a difference to whether it is rational for a person to believe a proposition. In this paper, I consider in what way higher-order evidence might do this. More specifically, I consider whether and how higher-order evidence plays a role in (...) determining what it is rational to believe distinct from that which first-order evidence plays. To do this, I turn to the theory of reasons, and try to situate higher-order evidence within it. The only place I find for it there, distinct from that which first-order evidence already occupies, is as a practical reason, that is, as a reason for desire or action. One might take this to show either that the theory of reasons is inadequate as it stands or that higher-order evidence makes no distinctive difference to what it is rational to believe. I tentatively endorse the second option. (shrink)

I argue that abstract objects cannot depend on God for their existence and nature.

A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I then show that prominent views (...) in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

The text "Truth and Meaning" is translated here from Donald Davidson's book: Donald Davidson - Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson) (1984), pp. 17-37.

I try to lay bare some of the conceptual space in which one may be a Social Trinitarian. I organize the paper around answers to five questions. These are: (1) How do the three Persons of the Trinity relate to the Godhead? (2) How many divine beings or gods are there? (3) How many distinct centers of consciousness are there in the Godhead? (4) How many omnicompetent beings are there? (5) How are the Persons of the Trinity individuated? I try (...) to make clear costs and benefits of various answers to these questions. (shrink)

What is a normative reason for acting? In this paper, I introduce and defend a novel answer to this question. The starting-point is the view that reasons are right-makers. By exploring difficulties facing it, I arrive at an alternative, according to which reasons are evidence of respects in which it is right to perform an act, for example, that it keeps a promise. This is similar to the proposal that reasons for a person to act are evidence that she ought (...) to do so; however, as I explain, it differs from that proposal in two significant ways. As a result, I argue, the evidence-based account of reasons I advance shares the advantages of its predecessor while avoiding many of the difficulties facing it. (shrink)

Objective reasons are given by the facts. Subjective reasons are given by one’s perspective on the facts. Subjective reasons, not objective reasons, determine what it is rational to do. In this paper, I argue against a prominent account of subjective reasons. The problem with that account, I suggest, is that it makes what one has subjective reason to do, and hence what it is rational to do, turn on matters outside or independent of one’s perspective. After explaining and establishing this (...) point, I offer a novel account of subjective reasons which avoids the problem. (shrink)

What does the aesthetic ask of us? What claims do the aesthetic features of the objects and events in our environment make on us? My answer in this paper is: that depends. Aesthetic reasons can only justify feelings – they cannot demand them. A corollary of this is that there are no aesthetic obligations to feel, only permissions. However, I argue, aesthetic reasons can demand actions – they do not merely justify them. A corollary of this is that there are (...) aesthetic obligations to act, not only permissions. So, I conclude, the aesthetic asks little of us as patients and much of as agents. (shrink)

A critical survey of recent work in epistemology on higher-order evidence. It discusses the nature of higher-order evidence, some puzzles it raises, responses to those puzzles, and problems facing them. It concludes by indicating connections between debates concerning higher-order evidence in epistemology and parallel debates in ethics and aesthetics.

This paper examines the remarkable but not much analyzed phenomenon of anti-Cartesianism in the Weimar Republic, which was fueled by philosophers as well as by literary scholars, such as Ernst Robert Curtius. The outright rejection of Descartes needs to be seen within the context of the deep social and political crisis of a defeated Germany between the two World Wars. Rejection of rationality in favour of a perceived deeper German grasp of reality was part of the conservative backlash against the (...) national humiliation. Descartes as both the ‘father of modernity’ and the epitome of French ‘civilisation’ served as the perfect antagonist to what was extolled as the German authentic mode of being. Implanting this anti-Cartesianism into his nationalist elitist philosophical discourse Heidegger amplified it, and under the slogan “German philosophy resists” he channeled it into the national-socialist ideology. In a strange turn of events it was the surge of interest he encountered in post-war France that reestablished Heidegger’s intellectual standing and paved the road to his comeback in Germany around 1950. (shrink)

According to an influential reading of his later philosophy, Wittgenstein thinks that nonsense can result from combining expressions in ways prohibited by the rules to which their use is subject. According to another influential reading, the later Wittgenstein thinks that nonsense only ever results from privation—that is, from a failure to assign a meaning to one or more of the relevant expressions. This chapter challenges Glock’s defence of the view that the later Wittgenstein allows for combinatorial nonsense. In doing so, (...) it defends a version of the privation view. According to it, Wittgenstein thinks that nonsense results, not so much from a failure to assign a meaning to an expression, as a failure to use an expression in a way that has a point or purpose. As the chapter shows, this interpretation is consistent with prominent themes in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, such as that meaning and explanation are coordinate notions, that for a word to have a meaning is for there to be a rule-governed practice of using it, that the rules of the practice are arbitrary, and that they determine the bounds of sense. (shrink)

Spinoza rarely refers to art. However, there are extensive resources for a Spinozist aesthetics in his discussion of health in the Ethics and of social affects in his political works. There have been recently been a few essays linking Spinoza and art, but this essay additionally fuses Spinoza’s politics to an affective aesthetics. Spinoza’s statements that art makes us healthier (Ethics 4p54Sch; Emendation section 17) form the foundation of an aesthetics. In Spinoza’s definition, “health” is caused by external objects that (...) maintain our power to act in a variety of ways. Humans need such objects because our complex bodies constantly lose or consume many parts necessary to our overall functioning. Notably, Spinoza defines humans’ bodies through this complexity (2p13Sch), so health as maintenance of complexity is a distinctly human endeavor. Further, while art is not the only healthy activity, I argue that art is a particularly potent cure, which explains Spinoza’s otherwise opaque comment that music can cure melancholy (by which he meant a near-total inability to act, akin to death). Rather than only causing frivolous pleasures, art may be as essential to human flourishing as are other human beings in general; other people are “most useful” because of the variety of actions they make possible (4p35Cor & Sch1). Art’s production of a dizzying variety of affects is likewise most useful for health. -/- Having established how art in general affects the individual, I then explain the role of artists in shaping social groups. Artists use vivid and highly charged affective techniques, as do political sovereigns and religious prophets (TTP chapters 1-2 & 15-16). However, sovereigns and prophets are concerned exclusively with “morality,” defined by Spinoza as the use of affects (primarily based on fear and hope) to produce “obedience” in the generic multitude or people at large. An artist, however, rarely causes affects in the whole nation, affecting instead only a smaller niche or “sub-genre” of people. The affects produced in this group are also not identical to those used by sovereigns, since artists do not primarily deploy sad affects of hope and fear but instead use a wide variety of joyful affects. Further, in Spinoza’s analysis of ceremonies (TTP chapter 5), we see how small groups exposed to repeated ceremonies or social practices eventually develop new strengths which they lacked before. Repeated exposure to shared aesthetic “ceremonies” (e.g., live music performances) of the same sub-genre will over time create the capacity of new powers in the sub-genre of people, which distinguishes them from the masses. Spinoza says sovereigns forge a “second nature” for the generic people through affects; we can then affirm that smaller groups exposed to a distinct sub-genre of art can acquire a new “third nature” which will contain unique powers extending beyond healthy maintenance of their existing bodies. That is, art in general is necessary to flourish and remain whole (maintaining health), but it can also occasionally expand what one is to unforeseen heights (through specific artistic sub-genres). (shrink)

There has been much debate over whether to accept the claim that meaning is normative. One obstacle to making progress in that debate is that it is not always clear what the claim amounts to. In this paper, I try to resolve a dispute between those who advance the claim concerning how it should be understood. More specifically, I critically examine two competing conceptions of the normativity of meaning, rejecting one and defending the other. Though the paper aims to settle (...) a dispute among proponents of the claim that meaning is normative, it should be of interest to those who challenge it. After all, before one takes aim, one’s target needs to be in clear view. (shrink)

This response focuses on Balibar’s method of thinking transindividuality through multiple figures, in their similarities as well as their productive differences. His essay ‘Philosophies of the Transindividual: Spinoza, Marx, Freud’ combines the three titular figures in order to better think the multifaceted idea of ‘classical’ transindividuality. Balibar’s method combines the three but nonetheless maintains their dissimilarities as real differences. This response attempts to test or apply that method in two ways. The first application links Balibar’s analysis of Freud’s hypnotic leader (...) with a theme Balibar does not here discuss: wonder’s connection to superstition in Spinoza. At the level of their effects, superstitious wonder and hypnosis are nearly identical transindividual processes which lead to affective mass formation. However, their causes are quite distinct. This response details the similar effects and different causes, then asks the question: does their difference render them irreconcilable or complementary? Given the prominent role Spinoza plays in Balibar’s work, and the strong overall equivalence of wonder and hypnosis, this first application of Balibar’s method of multiple combination likely presents a complementarity rather than a conflict. This response’s second application, attempting to integrate another figure into the transindividual multiple, presents greater difficulties: what role, if any, could Foucault play in Balibar’s transindividuality? With Foucault, the tensions or differences perhaps amount to fundamental and thoroughgoing incompatibilities. However, combining Foucault with ‘classical’ transindividuality potentially extends and deepens each. This response concludes with examples of these problematic tensions as well as possibly fruitful combinations. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider Sally Haslanger’s social constructivist account of race and propose a modification to the nature of hierarchy specified. According to Haslanger, race will cease to exist post-hierarchy, given that she builds in a requirement of synchronic hierarchy for the existence of race. While Haslanger maintains that racial identity would linger beyond hierarchical treatment in the form of ethnicity, I will suggest this fails to provide adequate conceptual justice for the cultures and aesthetics which emerged out of (...) past oppression. In response, I propose a modification which would allow us to recognize the possibility of post-hierarchical races. (shrink)

Perhaps no one has done more in the last 30 years to advance thinking in the metaphysics of modality than has Alvin Plantinga. Collected here are some of his most important essays on this influential subject. Dating back from the late 1960's to the present, they chronicle the development of Plantinga's thoughts about some of the most fundamental issues in metaphysics: what is the nature of abstract objects like possible worlds, properties, propositions, and such phenomena? Are there possible but non-actual (...) objects? Can objects that do not exist exemplify properties? Plantinga gives thorough and penetrating to all of these questions and many others. This volume contains some of the best work in metaphysics from the past 30 years, and will remain a source of critical contention and keen interest among philosophers of metaphysics and philosophical logic for years to come. (shrink)

By introducing the concept of “mental data,” Palermos (2023) highlights an underappreciated aspect of data ethics that policymakers would do well to heed. Sweeping artificial intelligence (AI) legi...

Invited contribution to The Aim of Belief, a special issue of Teorema, guest-edited by J. Zalabardo.

Disavowals such as "That's not who I am" are one way to distance ourselves from unsavory actions in order to try to mitigate our responsibility for them. Although such disclaimers can be what Harry Frankfurt calls "shabbily insincere devices for obtaining unmerited indulgence," they can also be a way to renew our commitments to new values as part of the processes of aspiration and moral improvement. What, then, separates backsliding aspirants from those in denial who seek unmerited indulgence? Drawing on (...) Christine Korsgaard, on the one hand, and Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, on the other, I propose a two-dimensional account of practical identity that makes sense of a certain kind of self-ignorance and helps us distinguish the aspirant from the superficially similar cases of denial and resignation. A key factor is how one responds to what I call residual practical identities. (shrink)

An influential proposal is that knowledge involves safe belief. A belief is safe, in the relevant sense, just in case it is true in nearby metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper, I introduce a distinct but complementary notion of safety, understood in terms of epistemically possible worlds. The main aim, in doing so, is to add to the epistemologist’s tool-kit. To demonstrate the usefulness of the tool, I use it to advance and assess substantive proposals concerning knowledge and justification.

O objetivo deste capítulo é analisar o conceito de informação como uma ação significativa em sistemas complexos adaptativos. A comunicação e a linguagem são vistas como sistemas complexos por Maturana & Varela (1994), cuja principal característica é a auto-organização. Para estes autores, a comunicação é literalmente o conjunto de ações comuns em um coletivo de agentes. Sob uma vertente enativa semiótica, decidimos então: 1. Replicar resultados de convergência léxica e ampliar os resultados obtidos por Loula et al. (2003) e Loula (...) (2004); 2. Para isso, foi concebido e implementado o SIMPS - Simulador de Processos Semióticos; e 3. Analisar o conceito de informação como ação significativa, isto é, como ações envolvidas em processos semióticos, cujos significados se encontram nos usos coletivos das palavras e expressões de jogos de linguagem. Apesar de entendermos que nem toda informação é adaptativa, buscamos gerar informações passíveis de trazer vantagens adaptativas para grupos de agentes. Nosso modelo de simulação aponta, dentre outros resultados, que informações falsas podem ser mais prejudiciais do que informação alguma. (shrink)

In the introduction I argue that the basic element (or primitive) for constructing the physical universe is "displacement from a prior level", and the basic structure is "a sequence of such displacements" (summarized as postulates 1 and 2). The displacements are then defined as one-dimensional objects with a direction (postulate 3). The relations between these displacements are stated in postulate 4. In section 2 we discuss basic consequences of the postulates, and in section 3 we use the postulates to derive (...) a (3+1)-dimensional structure, interpreted as ordinary space and time. We then derive further properties of space --- isotropy, homogeneity, and a rapid early expansion (i.e. inflation). Time, comporting with experience, is shown to be a one-dimensional stream --- with a direction. In section 4 we associate energy with the displacements, and find that the same factors that construct ordinary space (and make it isotropic and homogeneous) also smear the locations of entities/particles across that space --- thereby providing a mechanism/explanation for that iconic and enigmatic aspect of quantum mechanics. We also determine that there must be a continual, uniformly-distributed stream of (non-zero-point) energy coming into the system that constructs new space (i.e. dark energy). The streaming natures of both time and dark energy are shown to have the same basic cause: the processes that input dark energy into the system, and that construct time, are themselves independent of time --- and so they are continual processes. Further consequences follow from the model, including an explanation for why the presence of energy affects space and time, and why quantum vacuum energy is an exception to this rule (i.e. does not gravitate) --- thereby eliminating the cosmological constant problem. A key benefit of the model is that it liberates us from always having to think about the construction of the universe in terms of spatio-temporal relations and evolution (e.g. the big bang model), which is problematic because presumably (and as we will indeed see) space and time are products of the fundamental construction process, not things that govern it. (shrink)

This book contributes to two debates and it does so by bringing them together. The first is a debate in metaethics concerning normative reasons, the considerations that serve to justify a person’s actions and attitudes. The second is a debate in epistemology concerning the norms for belief, the standards that govern a person’s beliefs and by reference to which they are assessed. The book starts by developing and defending a new theory of reasons for action, that is, of practical reasons. (...) The theory belongs to a family that analyses reasons by appeal to the normative notion of rightness (fittingness, correctness); it is distinctive in making central appeal to modal notions, specifically, that of a nearby possible world. The result is a comprehensive framework that captures what is common to and distinctive of reasons of various kinds: justifying and demanding; for and against, possessed and unpossessed; objective and subjective. The framework is then generalized to reasons for belief, that is, to epistemic reasons, and combined with a substantive, first-order commitment, namely, that truth is the sole right-maker for belief. The upshot is an account of the various norms governing belief, including knowledge and rationality, and the relations among them. According to it, the standards to which belief is subject are various, but they are unified by an underlying principle. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

3 Abstract This paper is about modeling morality, with a proposal as to the best 4 way to do it. There is the small problem, however, in continuing disagreements 5 over what morality actually is, and so what is worth modeling. This paper resolves 6 this problem around an understanding of the purpose of a moral model, and from 7 this purpose approaches the best way to model morality.