Current intellectual calls for more socially minded governance often resort to the authority of the experimental and behavioral economists who have provided uncontroversial evidence for the generalized existence of a Homo socialis. For a qualitative social researcher, the narrative of a “discovery” makes little sense. This article provides a more meaningful account of the experimental rationale of prosocial preferences research, interrogating, from a “decolonial” theoretical perspective, the epistemic and normative implications of a method that persuasively claims to have challenged (...) the intellectual imperialism of Homo economicus. Just as the colonial discourse that speaks of the “discovery” of America has shaped the global Eurocentric mentality that splits the world into hierarchical binaries, the academic discourse that speaks of the “discovery” of Homo socialis could reinforce a behavioral range that reduces the interpretation of non-prosocial choices to a binary spectrum still metrologically organized around Homo economicus. The danger is that Southern subjects do not always have the privilege of feeling prosocial and could be penalized for their disadvantage within a socially minded mode of governance. To address this danger, the article argues, experimental social scientists need to become qualitatively attuned to the methodological question of “range validity” beyond the traditional one of “external validity.”. (shrink)

Recent research on moral dynamics shows that an individual's ethical mind-set moderates the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act on the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent occasion. More specifically, an outcome-based mind-set facilitates Moral Balancing, whereas a rule-based mind-set facilitates Moral Consistency. The objective was to look at the evolution of moral choice across a series of scenarios, that is, to explore if these moral patterns are maintained over time. The results of three studies showed that (...) Moral Balancing is not.. (shrink)

Religion can be understood as a system of beliefs, practices, and values that relate to the nature of existence and the universe, and that often involve a belief in one or more supernatural or divine entities. Different religions have different beliefs, practices, and values, and there is often significant diversity within a particular religion as well. Many religions provide a set of moral and ethical principles that guide behavior and decision-making, helping individuals to navigate complex ethical issues and make (...) class='Hi'>choices that align with their values. Ethical and moral values are principles or beliefs that guide behavior and decision-making. Moral values are important for individuals to live in harmony with others and to make ethical choices. Moral values among youths are shaped by a variety of factors, including family, education, religion, and culture. It was discovered that young people who are actively involved in religious communities are more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior, such as volunteerism, empathy, and moral reasoning, than those who are not involved in religious communities. Religion provides a supportive and nurturing environment for young people, and offers guidance and support as they navigate complex ethical and moral issues. The study concluded that religion plays a significant role in shaping human history and culture, influencing art, literature, music, and philosophy, and contributing to the development of social and political institutions. The study recommended that religious institutions should strive to create welcoming and inclusive environments that foster a sense of community and belonging among young people. Religious leaders should engage with young people and encourage them to develop their own moral compass. Religious institutions should also collaborate with parents and educators to promote positive values and ethical behavior among young people. (shrink)

Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity between a reader and an exemplar in social or cultural background (Relatability) and how personally costly or demanding the exemplar’s actions are (Attainability). Study 1 found that university students reported more inspiration and related feelings after reading true stories about the good deeds of a (...) recent fellow alum, compared to a famous moral exemplar from decades past. Study 2A developed a battery of short moral exemplar stories that more systematically varied Relatability and Attainability, along with a set of non-moral exemplar stories for comparison. Studies 2B and 2C examined the path from the story type to relatively low stakes altruism (donating to charity and intentions to volunteer) through perceived attainability and relatability, as well as elevation and pleasantness. Together, our studies suggest that it is primarily the relatability of the moral exemplars, not the attainability of their actions, that inspires more prosocial motivation, at least regarding acts that help others at a relatively low cost to oneself. (shrink)

What makes a choice hard? I discuss and criticize three common answers and then make a proposal of my own. Paradigmatic hard choices are not hard because of our ignorance, the incommensurability of values, or the incomparability of the alternatives. They are hard because the alternatives are on a par; they are comparable, but one is not better than the other, and yet nor are they equally good. So understood, hard choices open up a new way of thinking (...) about what it is to be a rational agent. (shrink)

Welfarism is the view that individual welfare is the only thing that matters. One important contribution of social choice theory has been to provide a precise formulation and axiomatic characterization of welfarism using Amartya Sen's framework of social welfare functionals. This paper is motivated by the observation that the standard formalization of welfarism is too restrictive, since a welfarist social planner need not be committed to maximizing a preference ordering or any other binary relation over alternatives. We therefore provide a (...) characterization of welfarism in a more general choice-functional setting and show that welfarism, so understood, carries no commitment to rationalizability. This characterization is compatible with welfare values having any structure whatsoever. It also sheds light on different formulations of anonymity, revealing only some of these to be fundamental requirements of impartiality. (shrink)

There is a concern that the widespread deployment of autonomous machines will open up a number of ‘responsibility gaps’ throughout society. Various articulations of such techno-responsibility gaps have been proposed over the years, along with several potential solutions. Most of these solutions focus on ‘plugging’ or ‘dissolving’ the gaps. This paper offers an alternative perspective. It argues that techno-responsibility gaps are, sometimes, to be welcomed and that one of the advantages of autonomous machines is that they enable us to embrace (...) certain kinds of responsibility gap. The argument is based on the idea that human morality is often tragic. We frequently confront situations in which competing moral considerations pull in different directions and it is impossible to perfectly balance these considerations. This heightens the burden of responsibility associated with our choices. We cope with the tragedy of moral choice in different ways. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking the choices we make were not tragic ; sometimes we delegate the tragic choice to others ; sometimes we make the choice ourselves and bear the psychological consequences. Each of these strategies has its benefits and costs. One potential advantage of autonomous machines is that they enable a reduced cost form of delegation. However, we only gain the advantage of this reduced cost if we accept that some techno-responsibility gaps are virtuous. (shrink)

This paper develops a semantic solution to the puzzle of Free Choice permission. The paper begins with a battery of impossibility results showing that Free Choice is in tension with a variety of classical principles, including Disjunction Introduction and the Law of Excluded Middle. Most interestingly, Free Choice appears incompatible with a principle concerning the behavior of Free Choice under negation, Double Prohibition, which says that Mary can’t have soup or salad implies Mary can’t have soup and Mary can’t have (...) salad. Alonso-Ovalle 2006 and others have appealed to Double Prohibition to motivate pragmatic accounts of Free Choice. Aher 2012, Aloni 2018, and others have developed semantic accounts of Free Choice that also explain Double Prohibition. -/- This paper offers a new semantic analysis of Free Choice designed to handle the full range of impossibility results involved in Free Choice. The paper develops the hypothesis that Free Choice is a homogeneity effect. The claim possibly A or B is defined only when A and B are homogenous with respect to their modal status, either both possible or both impossible. Paired with a notion of entailment that is sensitive to definedness conditions, this theory validates Free Choice while retaining a wide variety of classical principles except for the transitivity of entailment. The homogeneity hypothesis is implemented in two different ways, homogeneous alternative semantics and homogeneous dynamic semantics, with interestingly different consequences. (shrink)

A platitude that took hold with Kuhn is that there can be several equally good ways of balancing theoretical virtues for theory choice. Okasha recently modelled theory choice using technical apparatus from the domain of social choice: famously, Arrow showed that no method of social choice can jointly satisfy four desiderata, and each of the desiderata in social choice has an analogue in theory choice. Okasha suggested that one can avoid the Arrow analogue for theory choice by employing a strategy (...) used by Sen in social choice, namely, to enhance the information made available to the choice algorithms. I argue here that, despite Okasha’s claims to the contrary, the information-enhancing strategy is not compelling in the domain of theory choice. (shrink)

The concepts of choice, negation, and infinity are considered jointly. The link is the quantity of information interpreted as the quantity of choices measured in units of elementary choice: a bit is an elementary choice between two equally probable alternatives. “Negation” supposes a choice between it and confirmation. Thus quantity of information can be also interpreted as quantity of negations. The disjunctive choice between confirmation and negation as to infinity can be chosen or not in turn: This corresponds to (...) set-theory or intuitionist approach to the foundation of mathematics and to Peano or Heyting arithmetic. Quantum mechanics can be reformulated in terms of information introducing the concept and quantity of quantum information. A qubit can be equivalently interpreted as that generalization of “bit” where the choice is among an infinite set or series of alternatives. The complex Hilbert space can be represented as both series of qubits and value of quantum information. The complex Hilbert space is that generalization of Peano arithmetic where any natural number is substituted by a qubit. “Negation”, “choice”, and “infinity” can be inherently linked to each other both in the foundation of mathematics and quantum mechanics by the meditation of “information” and “quantum information”. (shrink)

A decision maker (DM) selects a project from a set of alternatives with uncertain productivity. After the choice, she observes a signal about productivity and decides how much effort to put in. This paper analyzes the optimal decision problem of the DM who rationally filters information to deal with her post-decision cognitive dissonance. It is shown that the optimal effort level for a project can be affected by unchosen projects in her choice set, and the nature of the choice set-dependence (...) is determined by the signal structure. Some comparative statics of choice set-dependence is also provided. Finally, based on the results, the optimal choice set design is also explored. This paper offers a simple framework to explain the experimental finding in psychology that people’s effort level for a project can be enhanced when the project is chosen by themselves rather than by others. (shrink)

Evolutionary research on the biological fitness of groups has recently given a prominent value to the role that prosocial behaviors play in favoring a successful adaptation to ecological niches. Such a focus marks a paradigm shift. Early views of evolution relied on the notion of natural selection as a largely competitive mechanism for the achievement of the highest amount of resources. Today, evolutionists from different schools think that collaborative attitudes are an irremovable ingredient of biological change over time. As (...) a consequence, a number of researchers have been attracted by evolutionary studies of human behaviors. Some think that a continuity among prosocial attitudes of human beings and other social mammals can be detected, and that this fact has relevance for accounting for human morality. Others deny one or the other of these claims, or both. The papers in the present special issue address how these topics impact ethics and religion. (shrink)

If A is better than B and B is better than C, then A is better than C, right? Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels say: No! Betterness is nontransitive, they claim. In this paper, I discuss the central type of argument advanced by Temkin and Rachels for this radical idea, and argue that, given this view very likely has sceptical implications for practical reason, we would do well to identify alternative responses. I propose one such response, which employs the idea (...) that rational agents might regard some options as incommensurate in value, and will reasonably employ a heuristic of status quo maintenance to avoid suboptimal choices from incommensurate goods. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This paper serves two purposes: (i) it can be used by students as an introduction to chapters 1-5 of book iii of the NE; (ii) it suggests an answer to the unresolved question what overall objective this section of the NE has. The paper focuses primarily on Aristotle’s theory of what makes us responsible for our actions and character. After some preliminary observations about praise, blame and responsibility (Section 2), it sets out in detail how all the key notions (...) of NE iii 1-5 are interrelated (Sections 3-9). The setting-out of these interconnections makes it then possible to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the purpose of the passage. Its primary purpose is to explain how agents are responsible for their actions not just insofar as they are actions of this kind or that, but also insofar as they are noble or base: agents are responsible for their actions qua noble or base, because, typically via choice, their character dispositions are a causal factor of those actions (Section 10). The paper illustrates the different ways in which agents can be causes of their actions by means of Aristotle’s four basic types of agents (Section 11). A secondary purpose of NE iii 1-5 is to explain how agents can be held responsible for consequences of their actions (Section 12), in particular for their character dispositions insofar as these are noble or base, i.e. virtues or vices (Section 13). These two goals are not the only ones Aristotle pursues in the passage. But they are the ones Aristotle himself indicates in its first sentence and summarizes in its last paragraph; and the ones that give the passage a systematic unity. The paper also briefly consider the issues of freedom-to-do-otherwise, free choice and free-will in the contexts in which they occur (i.e. in the final paragraphs of Sections 6, 7, 12, 13). (shrink)

I propose a revision of Cantor’s account of set size that understands comparisons of set size fundamentally in terms of surjections rather than injections. This revised account is equivalent to Cantor's account if the Axiom of Choice is true, but its consequences differ from those of Cantor’s if the Axiom of Choice is false. I argue that the revised account is an intuitive generalization of Cantor’s account, blocks paradoxes—most notably, that a set can be partitioned into a set that is (...) bigger than it—that can arise from Cantor’s account if the Axiom of Choice is false, illuminates the debate over whether the Axiom of Choice is true, is a mathematically fruitful alternative to Cantor’s account, and sheds philosophical light on one of the oldest unsolved problems in set theory. (shrink)

Normative thinking about addiction has traditionally been divided between, on the one hand, a medical model which sees addiction as a disease characterized by compulsive and relapsing drug use over which the addict has little or no control and, on the other, a moral model which sees addiction as a choice characterized by voluntary behaviour under the control of the addict. Proponents of the former appeal to evidence showing that regular consumption of drugs causes persistent changes in the brain structures (...) and functions known to be involved in the motivation of behavior. On this evidence, it is often concluded that becoming addicted involves a transition from voluntary, chosen drug use to non-voluntary compulsive drug use. Against this view, proponents of the moral model provide ample evidence that addictive drug use involves voluntary chosen behaviour. In this paper we argue that although they are right about something, both views are mistaken. We present a third model that neither rules out the view of addictive drug use as compulsive, nor that it involves voluntary chosen behavior. -/- . (shrink)

Choice experiment (CE) is a questionnaire based method that the accuracy of research questionnaire determines the validity of the research outcomes. Attribute selection has a prime importance in every CE studies. If respondents do not understand or do not have preference for a certain attribute, the attribute non-attendance problem might happen that biases overall results of the research. Qualitative approaches such as literature review, focus group discussion, and in depth discussion commonly applied in CE researches. However, especially in the developing (...) countries context where ethnical and cultural diversity is a challenge in conducting survey based questionnaires, qualitative methods are not sufficient in selecting attributes. Present study investigates the application of relative importance index (RII) in respondents¡¯ preference for attributes in a modal shift study in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The 5 point Likert scale questions were employed to enhance respondents¡¯ preferences for initial 24 selected attributes. The results of this study showed that from 24 pre-selected attributes, only 18 of them had RII>0.5 and could be included in the final CE design. The results of this study could help researchers to control for unobserved problems in selecting the attributes which could not be discovered through qualitative approaches. -/- . (shrink)

It has long been known that in the context of axiomatic second-order logic (SOL), Hume's Principle (HP) is mutually interpretable with "the universe is Dedekind infinite" (DI). I offer a more fine-grained analysis of the logical strength of HP, measured by deductive implications rather than interpretability. The main result is that HP is not deductively conservative over SOL + DI. That is, SOL + HP proves additional theorems in the language of pure second-order logic that are not provable from SOL (...) + DI alone. Arguably, then, HP is not just a pure axiom of infinity, but rather it carries additional logical content. On the other hand, I show that HP is $\Pi^1_1$ conservative over SOL + DI, and that HP is conservative over SOL + DI + "the universe is well ordered" (WO). Next, I show that SOL + HP does not prove any of the simplest and most natural versions of the axiom of choice, including WO and weaker principles. Lastly, I discuss other axioms of infinity. I show that HP does not prove the Splitting or Pairing principles (axioms of infinity stronger than DI). (shrink)

Taken collectively, consumer food choices have a major impact on animal lives, human lives, and the environment. But it is far from clear how to move from facts about the power of collective consumer demand to conclusions about what one ought to do as an individual consumer. In particular, even if a large-scale shift in demand away from a certain product (e.g., factory-farmed meat) would prevent grave harms or injustices, it typically does not seem that it will make a (...) difference whether one refrains from purchasing that product oneself. Most present-day food companies operate at too large a scale for a single purchase to make a difference to production decisions. If that is true, then it is not clear what point there is in refraining. This is “the problem of collective impact.” This chapter explores a range of proposals for how to solve this problem. (shrink)

One hundred and ninety participants (95 undergraduates and 95 employees) responded to a factorial survey in which a number of case-based organizational allocation tasks were described. Participants were asked to imagine themselves as employees in fictitious organizations and chose among three allocations of employee development schemes invested by the manager in different work groups. The allocations regarded how such investments should be allocated between two parties. Participants chose twice, once picking the fairest and once the best allocation. One between-subjects factor (...) varied whether the parties represented social (i.e., choosing among allocations between two different work groups) or temporal comparisons (i.e., choosing among allocations between the present and the following year). Another between-subjects factor varied whether participants’ in-group was represented by the parties or not. One allocation maximized the outcome to one party, another maximized the joint outcome received by both parties, and a third provided both parties with equal but lower outcomes. It was predicted that equality, although always deficient to both parties, would be the preferred allocation when parties represented social comparisons and when choices were based on fairness. When parties represented temporal comparisons, and when choices were based on preference, maximizing the joint outcome was hypothesized to be the preferred allocation. Results supported these hypotheses. Against what was predicted, whether the in-group was represented by the parties or not did not moderate the results, indicating that participants’ allocation preferences were not affected by self-interest. The main message is that people make sensible distinctions between what they prefer and what they regard as fair. The results were the same for participating students who imagined themselves as being employees and participants who were true employees, suggesting that no serious threats to external validity are committed when university students are used as participants. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way to understand transformative choices, choices that change ‘who you are.’ First, it distinguishes two broad models of transformative choice: 1) ‘event-based’ transformative choices in which some event—perhaps an experience—downstream from a choice transforms you, and 2) ‘choice-based’ transformative choices in which the choice itself—and not something downstream from the choice—transforms you. Transformative choices are of interest primarily because they purport to pose a challenge to standard approaches to rational choice. An (...) examination of the event-based transformative choices of L. A. Paul and Edna Ullman-Margalit, however, suggests that event-based transformative choices don’t raise any difficulties for standard approaches to rational choice. An account of choice-based transformative choices—and what it is to be transformed—is then proposed. Transformative choices so understood not only capture paradigmatic cases of transformative choice but also point the way to a different way of thinking about rational choice and agency. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that ontological choices in scientific practice undermine common formulations of the value-free ideal in science. First, I argue that the truth values of scientific statements depend on ontological choices. For example, statements about entities such as species, race, memory, intelligence, depression, or obesity are true or false relative to the choice of a biological, psychological, or medical ontology. Second, I show that ontological choices often depend on non-epistemic values. On (...) the basis of these premises, I argue that it is often neither possible nor desirable to evaluate scientific statements independently of non-epistemic values. Finally, I suggest that considerations of ontological choices do not only challenge the value-free ideal but also help to specify positive roles of non-epistemic values in an often neglected area of scientific practice. (shrink)

Sometimes citizens disagree about political matters, but a decision must be made. We have two theoretical frameworks for resolving political disagreement. The first is the framework of social choice. In it, our goal is to treat parties to the dispute fairly, and there is no sense in which some are right and the others wrong. The second framework is that of collective decision-making. Here, we do believe that preferences are truth apt, and our moral consideration is owed not to those (...) who disagree but to the community that stands to benefit or suffer from the decision. In this chapter, I describe and explore these two frameworks. I conclude two things. First, analysis of real-world disagreement suggests that collective decision-making is the right way to model politics. In most, possibly even all, political disagreement, all parties believe (if implicitly) that there is an objective standard of correctness. Second, this matter is connected to the concept of pluralism. If pluralism is true, then collective decision-making cannot be applied to some political disagreements. More surprisingly, pluralism may rule out the applicability of social choice theory as well. (shrink)

We introduce a “reason-based” framework for explaining and predicting individual choices. It captures the idea that a decision-maker focuses on some but not all properties of the options and chooses an option whose motivationally salient properties he/she most prefers. Reason-based explanations allow us to distinguish between two kinds of context-dependent choice: the motivationally salient properties may (i) vary across choice contexts, and (ii) include not only “intrinsic” properties of the options, but also “context-related” properties. Our framework can accommodate boundedly (...) rational and sophisticatedly rational choice. Since properties can be recombined in new ways, it also offers resources for predicting choices in unobserved contexts. (shrink)

Summary measures of health, such as the quality-adjusted life year and disability-adjusted life year, have long been known to incorporate a number of value choices. In this paper, though, I show that the value choices in the construction of such measures extend far beyond what is generally recognized. In showing this, I hope both to improve the understanding of those measures by epidemiologists, health economists and policy-makers, and also to contribute to the general debate about the extent to (...) which such measures should be adjusted to reflect ethical values. (shrink)

There is a current debate about the grammar of intention: do I intend to φ, or that I φ? The equivalent question in Aristotle relates especially to choice. I argue that, in the context of practical reasoning, choice, as also wish, has as its object an act. I then explore the role that this plays within his account of the relation of thought to action. In particular, I discuss the relation of deliberation to the practical syllogism, and the thesis that (...) the conclusion of the second is an action. (shrink)

In democracies citizens are supposed to have some control over the general direction of policy. According to a pretheoretical interpretation of this idea, the people have control if elections and other democratic institutions compel officials to do what the people want, or what the majority want. This interpretation of popular control fits uncomfortably with insights from social choice theory; some commentators—Riker, most famously—have argued that these insights should make us abandon the idea of popular rule as traditionally understood. This article (...) presents a formal theory of popular control that responds to the challenge from social choice theory. It makes precise a sense in which majorities may be said to have control even if the majority preference relation has an empty core. And it presents a simple game-theoretic model to illustrate how majorities can exercise control in this specified sense, even when incumbents are engaged in purely re-distributive policymaking and the majority rule core is empty. (shrink)

According to an often repeated definition, economics is the science of individual choices and their consequences. The emphasis on choice is often used – implicitly or explicitly – to mark a contrast between markets and the state: While the price mechanism in well-functioning markets preserves freedom of choice and still efficiently coordinates individual actions, the state has to rely to some degree on coercion to coordinate individual actions. Since coercion should not be used arbitrarily, coordination by the state needs (...) to be legitimized by the consent of its citizens. The emphasis in economic theory on freedom of choice in the market sphere suggests that legitimization in the market sphere is “automatic” and that markets can thus avoid the typical legitimization problem of the state. In this paper, I shall question the alleged dichotomy between legitimization in the market and in the state. I shall argue that it is the result of a conflation of choice and consent in economics and show how an independent concept of consent makes the need for legitimization of market transactions visible. Footnotes1 For helpful comments and suggestions I am most grateful to Marc Fleurbaey, Alain Marciano, Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Thomas Pogge, Hans Bernhard Schmid, to seminar or conference participants in Aix-Marseille, Tutzing, Paris, and Amsterdam, and to two anonymous referees. (shrink)

Over time, research programs focusing on the processes that underlie dissonance and regret diverged to the point that the present literature only occasionally draws explicit connections between regret and consistency seeking processes. One of our aims in this chapter is to reestablish the connection between regret and consistency within the context of a theory that examines two independent factors that critically interact to enhance or diminish regret. The first of these is opportunity, which includes both perceptions of past opportunities to (...) make alternative choices and future opportunities to take corrective actions, and the second is mitigation, which is the ability to justify one's actions or otherwise engage regulatory processes that allow for the diminishment of regret. We examine both opportunity and mitigation separately before describing how the two may interact to elicit differential experiences of regret. (shrink)

This article is about the information relevant to decision-making capacity in refusal of life-prolonging medical treatment cases. We examine the degree to which the phenomenology of the options available to the agent—what the relevant states of affairs will feel like for them—forms part of the capacity-relevant information in the law of England and Wales, and how this informational basis varies across adolescent and adult medical treatment cases. We identify an important doctrinal phenomenon. In the leading authorities, the courts appear to (...) count the first-personal phenomenology of the available options among the information that adolescents seeking to refuse life-prolonging treatment must understand and appreciate in order to possess capacity; adults are not held to this (higher) standard. We evaluate this differential treatment in light of philosophical work on transformative choice—decisions involving options whose sensory character, and effect on our values and preferences, are grasped only through experience itself. (shrink)

The past four decades of research in the social sciences have shed light on two important phenomena. One is that human decision-making is full of predicable errors and biases that often lead individuals to make choices that defeat their own ends (i.e., the bad choice phenomenon), and the other is that individuals’ decisions and behaviors are powerfully shaped by their environment (i.e., the influence phenomenon). Some have argued that it is ethically defensible that the influence phenomenon be utilized to (...) address the bad choice phenomenon. They propose that “choice architects” learn about the various ways in which choices can be influenced and directed by the environment, and then work to design environments, broadly construed, that influence individuals towards choices that make them better off. Those who advocate intentionally creating choice environments that lead people to better choices believe that doing so is ethically permissible because (1) it makes people better off, and (2) it does so in a way that is entirely compatible with individual liberty. The evaluation of these two claims is the main focus of this paper. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument against the widespread view that ‘hard choices’ are hard because of the incomparability of the alternatives. The argument has two parts. First, I argue that any plausible theory of practical reason must be ‘comparativist’ in form, that is, it must hold that a comparative relation between the alternatives with respect to what matters in the choice determines a justified choice in that situation. If comparativist views of practical reason are correct, however, the incomparabilist view (...) of hard choices should be rejected. Incomparabilism about hard choices leads us to an implausible error theory about the phenomenology of hard choices, threatens an unattractive view of human agency, and leaves us in perplexity about what we are doing when we choose in hard choices. The second part of the argument explores the main competitor to comparativist views of practical reason, noncomparativist view, according tow which a choice is justified so long as it is not worse than any of the alternatives. This view is often assumed by rational choice theorists but has its best philosophical defense in work by Joseph Raz. On Raz’s view, incomparabilism about hard choices avoids the problems faced if comparativism is correct, but it faces different difficulties. I argue that Raz’s noncomparativist view mistakenly assimilates practical reason to more restricted normative domains such as the law. (shrink)

Causal Decision Theory reckons the choice-worthiness of an option to be completely independent of its evidential bearing on its non-effects. But after one has made a choice this bearing is relevant to future decisions. Therefore it is possible to construct problems of sequential choice in which Causal Decision Theory makes a guaranteed loss. So Causal Decision Theory is wrong. The source of the problem is the idea that agents have a special perspective on their own contemplated actions, from which evidential (...) connections that observers can see are either irrelevant or invisible. (shrink)

To nudge is to design choice contexts in order to improve choice outcomes. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein emphatically endorse nudging but reject more restrictive means. In contrast, I argue that the behavioral psychology that motivates nudging also motivates what may be called jolting — i.e. the design of choice content. I defend nudging and jolting by distinguishing them from the sometimes oppressive means with which they can be implemented, by responding to some common arguments against nudging, and by showing (...) how respect for preferences over option sets and their aggregate properties may require the trimming of option sets, as well as helpful choice contexts. (shrink)

This paper addresses a little puzzle with a surprisingly long pedigree and a surprisingly large wake: the puzzle of Free Choice Permission. I begin by presenting a popular sketch of a pragmatic solution to the puzzle, due to Kratzer and Shimoyama, which has received a good deal of discussion, endorsement and elaboration in recent work :535–590, 2006; Fox, in: Sauerland and Stateva Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, 2007; Geurts, Mind Lang 24:51–79, 2009; von Fintel, Central APA session on Deontic (...) Modals, 2012). I then explain why the general form of the Kratzer and Shimoyama explanation is not extensionally adequate. This leaves us with two possibilities with regard to the original solution-sketch; either the suggested pragmatic route fails, or it succeeds in a particularly strange way: Free Choice permission is rendered a kind pragmatic illusion on the part of both speakers and hearers. Finally, I discuss some ramifications. (shrink)

When people are making certain medical decisions – especially potentially transformative ones – the specter of regret may color their choices. In this paper, I ask: can predicting that we will regret a decision in the future serve any justificatory role in our present decision-making? And if so, what role? While there are many pitfalls to such reasoning, I ultimately conclude that considering future retrospective emotions like regret in our decisionmaking can be both rational and authentic. Rather than indicating (...) that one is about to make a mistake or that there is some underlying value that one already cares about but is overlooking, the prediction that one will regret a decision in the future makes one confront how her present values and priorities may change as a result of her choice in ways she cannot presently anticipate. (shrink)

There are two inspirations for the theory presented. One is the Kantian idea that a free choice affects a deterministic sequence of events globally rather than just locally. The second is the Leibnizian idea that God chooses for actuality the possible world he deems best. But instead of God choosing, suppose free agents collectively do. Let actuality be an office which deterministic possible worlds are voted in and not of. In this way free choice can change things even if every (...) event is fully governed by deterministic laws: free choice substitutes one deterministic world for another. One way to look at the actual world on this theory is as a patchwork of segments of possible worlds. This gives the theory two advantages over familiar compatibilisms: it explains how the future is unsettled until chosen, and it allows that free choices are spontaneous. (shrink)

In normative political theory, it is widely accepted that democracy cannot be reduced to voting alone, but that it requires deliberation. In formal social choice theory, by contrast, the study of democracy has focused primarily on the aggregation of individual opinions into collective decisions, typically through voting. While the literature on deliberation has an optimistic flavour, the literature on social choice is more mixed. It is centred around several paradoxes and impossibility results identifying conflicts between different intuitively plausible desiderata. In (...) recent years, there has been a growing dialogue between the two literatures. This paper discusses the connections between them. Important insights are that (i) deliberation can complement aggregation and open up an escape route from some of its negative results; and (ii) the formal models of social choice theory can shed light on some aspects of deliberation, such as the nature of deliberation-induced opinion change. (shrink)

Efficiency requires legislative political institutions. There are many ways efficiency can be promoted, and so an ongoing legislative institution is necessary to resolve this choice in a politically sustainable and economically flexible way. This poses serious problems for classical liberal proposals to constitutionally protect markets from government intervention, as seen in the work of Ilya Somin, Guido Pincione & Fernando Tesón and others. The argument for the political nature of efficiency is set out in terms of both Pareto optimality and (...) aggregate welfare maximisation, and similar arguments can be generalised to other social values. (shrink)

Forcing occurs when a magician influences the audience's decisions without their awareness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this effect, we examined several stimulus and personality predictors. In Study 1, a magician flipped through a deck of playing cards while participants were asked to choose one. Although the magician could influence the choice almost every time (98%), relatively few (9%) noticed this influence. In Study 2, participants observed rapid series of cards on a computer, with one target card shown longer than (...) the rest. We expected people would tend to choose this card without noticing that it was shown longest. Both stimulus and personality factors predicted the choice of card, depending on whether the influence was noticed. These results show that combining real-world and laboratory research can be a powerful way to study magic and can provide new methods to study the feeling of free will. (shrink)

It is customary to think that Objective List (“OL), Desire-Satisfaction (“D-S”) and Hedonistic (“HED”) theories of prudential value pretty much cover the waterfront, and that those of the three that are “subjective” are naturalistic (in the sense attacked by Moore, Ross and Ewing), while those that are “objective” must be Platonic, Aristotelian or commit the naturalist fallacy. I here argue for a theory that is both naturalistic (because voluntaristic) and objective but neither Platonic, Aristotelian, nor (I hope) fallacious. In addition, (...) this proposal, called “CHOICE,” is an example of neither an OL, D-S, nor HED theory. It is a theory according to which uncoerced choosings create objective values that we (even everyone) may be wrong about, because valuations are conative rather than epistemic activities. On this view, intrinsic prudential goods necessarily involve likely (pursuant to lawlike regularities) net increases in successful free choosings . (shrink)

It is a plausible speculation that conventional choices in outcome measures might influence the results of meta-analyses. We test that speculation by simulating data from trials on antidepressants. We vary real drug effectiveness while modulating conventional values for outcome measures. We had previously shown that one conventional choice used in meta-analyses of antidepressants falls in a narrow range of values that maximize estimates of effectiveness. Our present analysis investigates why this phenomenon occurs. Moreover, our results suggest the superiority of (...) absolute outcome measures over relative measures. This research program can be extended to test numerous other aspects of clinical research. (shrink)

I focus on the relation between affects and the Incorporation Thesis in Kant’s ethics. I challenge the following view: According to Kant, when affects lead to action, the relation between one’s affect and one’s action is one of being caused to act by one’s affect in such a way that it leaves no room for choice by the agent. I argue that Kant’s text supports an alternative reading of how affects lead to action. On the view I propose, when affects (...) lead to action, the relation between one’s affect and one’s action is such that one unreflectively chooses to act on a maxim adopted either for some implicit reason or for some explicit bad reason. (shrink)

Does addiction to heroin undermine the voluntariness of heroin addicts' consent to take part in research which involves giving them free and legal heroin? This question has been raised in connection with research into the effectiveness of heroin prescription as a way of treating dependent heroin users. Participants in such research are required to give their informed consent to take part. Louis C. Charland has argued that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to do this since heroin (...) addiction by nature involves a loss of ability to resist the desire for heroin. In this article, I argue that Charland is right that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to consent, but not for the reason he thinks. In fact, as Charland's critics correctly point out, there is plenty of evidence showing that heroin addicts can resist their desire for heroin. These critics are wrong, however, to conclude from this that we should presume that heroin addicts are competent to give their voluntary consent. There are, I shall argue, other conditions associated with heroin addiction that might constrain heroin addicts' choice in ways likely to undermine the voluntariness of their consent. In order to see this, we need to move beyond the focus on the addicts' desires for heroin and instead consider the wider social and psychological circumstances of heroin addiction, as well as the effects these circumstances may have on the addicts' beliefs about the nature of their options. (shrink)

In decision-making based on multiple criteria, situations may arise where agents find their options to be neither better than, worse than nor equal to each other with respect to the relevant criteria. How, if at all, can a justified choice be made between such options? Are the options incomparable? This article explores a hypothetical case that illustrates how such a situation can arise in an environmental context; more specifically, it considers the deliberations of an imagined ‘ethics committee’ as it struggles (...) to decide whether or not a deep-sea mining project should be allowed to proceed. I argue that the case is best understood as involving options that are comparable in the sense of being ‘on a par’. Working out from a discussion of Ruth Chang's ‘self-governance’ theory of choice in cases of parity, I suggest that, in the environmental context, the idea of choices expressing a moral identity may lead us in the direction of a plausible solution to these particularly challenging cases. (shrink)

We reexamine some of the classic problems connected with the use of cardinal utility functions in decision theory, and discuss Patrick Suppes's contributions to this field in light of a reinterpretation we propose for these problems. We analytically decompose the doctrine of ordinalism, which only accepts ordinal utility functions, and distinguish between several doctrines of cardinalism, depending on what components of ordinalism they specifically reject. We identify Suppes's doctrine with the major deviation from ordinalism that conceives of utility functions as (...) representing preference differences, while being non- etheless empirically related to choices. We highlight the originality, promises and limits of this choice-based cardinalism. (shrink)

This book develops an evolutionary account of animal choice and human freedom, thus supplementing the conceptual account of freedom with an explanation how it developed.

Today research on prosocial behaviour is very much shaped by the success of social neuroscience. However, some philosopher's criticise neuroscience as reductionist. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this critique. With a philosophical background in Charles Taylor's hermeneutic thesis "man as a self-interpreting animal", the paper shows that neuroscientists' attempt to describe prosocial behaviour in science through brain imaging technologies (MRI) constitute a neurochemical self that resonates a modern ‘paradigm of clarity and objectivity’ as presented by (...) Taylor. It is argued that this scientific explanation model challenges Taylor's hermeneutic self. Where human behaviour previous was mapped on a psychological level, prosocial behaviour is described in the body - the human brain - on a neurophysiological level. The author applies an autism analogy metaphor, which paradoxical shows that the neurochemical self’s emphasis on structures and observations epistemological facilitate an autistic understanding of prosocial behaviour alien to the situated and interpreted feelings of Taylor's self-understanding(s), and the logic of our everyday language. (shrink)

The scholarship on the ethics of abortion was stimulated by the legalization of abortion in the United States in 1973. The recent overturning of Roe v Wade will likely have the same effect. This book discusses the libertarian perspective on the subject, drawing attention to the implications of self-ownership, Lockean appropriation and abandonment, private property rights, and so on. Much ground is covered, from history to the Supreme Court decisions to natural law to ensoulment. Choice sheds new philosophical light on (...) this thorny issue. (shrink)

Is there a choice in sexual orientation? [Wilkerson, William S. : “Is It a Choice? Sexual Orientation as Interpretation”. In: Journal of Social Philosophy 40. No. 1, p. 97–116] argues that sexual desires require interpretation in order to be fully constituted, and therefore sexual orientation is at least partially constituted by choice. [Díaz-León, Esa : “Sexual Orientation as Interpretation? Sexual Desires, Concepts, and Choice”; In: Journal of Social Ontology] critically assesses Wilkerson’s argument, concluding that we still lack a good argument (...) for the claim that choice plays a role in sexual orientation. Here I examine Díaz-León’s response to Wilkerson. I introduce what I call the conceptual act theory of sexual orientation, and argue that even if interpretation were not necessary to constitute sexual desires, it is a necessary element to constitute what we call sexual orientation. However, I conclude that even if we agree that interpretation is involved in sexual orientation, it does not follow that there is a choice involved. (shrink)