In the recent philosophical literature on inquiry, epistemologists point out that their subject has often begun at the point at which you already have your evidence and then focussed on identifying the beliefs for which that evidence provides justification. But we are not mere passive recipients of evidence. While some comes to us unbidden, we often actively collect it. This has long been recognised, but typically epistemologists have taken the norms that govern inquiry to be practical, not epistemic. The recent (...) literature challenges this assumption and uncovers a rich range of questions about the epistemic normativity of inquiry. In this paper, I approach these questions from the formal side of epistemology. Developing out of the philosophy of science, as it did, this branch of epistemology has long discussed inquiry. And, building on the insights of Janina Hosiasson (1931), David Blackwell (1951), and I. J. Good (1967), it has produced a reasonably well-developed framework in which to understand norms of inquiry, both epistemic and practical. In the first half of the paper, I will present the pragmatic versions of this framework due to Hosiasson, Blackwell, and Good, and the epistemic version due to Graham Oddie (1997); in the second half of the paper, I put this framework to work, turning to some of the questions from the recent debate about inquiry and asking how the framework can help us answer them. Questions include: When should we initiate an inquiry, when should we continue it, when should we conclude it, and when should we reopen it? How do epistemic norms of inquiry relate to epistemic norms of belief or credence, and can they conflict, as Jane Friedman (2020) contends? How should we resolve the apparent puzzle raised by Friedman's example of counting the windows in the Chrysler Building? How should we direct our attention, as Georgi Gardiner (2022) asks? How should we choose and reason after receiving evidence we'd rather not have received? And how should we understand the epistemic error that occurs when someone is resistant to evidence in the way Mona Simion (2023) describes? (shrink)

What is the most general common set of attributes that characterises something as intrinsically valuable and hence as subject to some moral respect, and without which something would rightly be considered intrinsically worthless or even positively unworthy and therefore rightly to be disrespected in itself? This paper develops and supports the thesis that the minimal condition of possibility of an entity's least intrinsic value is to be identified with its ontological status as an information object. All entities, even (...) when interpreted as only clusters of information, still have a minimal moral worth qua information objects and so may deserve to be respected. The paper is organised into four main sections. Section 1 models moral action as an information system using the object-oriented programming methodology (OOP). Section 2 addresses the question of what role the several components constituting the moral system can have in an ethical analysis. If they can play only an instrumental role, then Computer Ethics (CE) is probably bound to remain at most a practical, field-dependent, applied or professional ethics. However, Computer Ethics can give rise to a macroethical approach, namely Information Ethics (IE), if one can show that ethical concern should be extended to include not only human, animal or biological entities, but also information objects. The following two sections show how this minimalist level of analysis can be achieved. Section 3 provides an axiological analysis of information objects. It criticises the Kantian approach to the concept of intrinsic value and shows that it can be improved by using the methodology introduced in the first section. The solution of the Kantian problem prompts the reformulation of the key question concerning the moral worth of an entity: what is the intrinsic value of x qua an object constituted by its inherited attributes? In answering this question, it is argued that entities can share different observable properties depending on the level of abstraction adopted,and that it is still possible to speak of moral value even at the highest level of ontological abstraction represented by the informational analysis. Section 4 develops a minimalist axiology based on the concept of information object. It further supports IE's position by addressing five objections that may undermine its acceptability. (shrink)

In this article, I cast doubt on an apparent truism, namely, that if evidence is available for gathering and use at a negligible cost, then it’s always instrumentally rational for us to gather that evidence and use it for making decisions. Call this ‘value of information’ (VOI). I show that VOI conflicts with two other plausible theses. The first is the view that an agent’s evidence can entail non-trivial propositions about the external world. The second is the view (...) that epistemic rationality requires us to update our credences by conditionalization. These two theses, given some plausible assumptions, make room for rationally biased inquiries where VOI fails. I go on to argue that this is bad news for defenders of VOI. (shrink)

Personal Information Management Systems (PIMS) aim to facilitate the sharing of personal information and protect privacy. Efforts to enhance privacy management, aligned with established privacy policies, have led to guidelines for integrating transparent notices and meaningful choices within these systems. Although discussions have revolved around the design of privacy-friendly systems that comply with legal requirements, there has been relatively limited philosophical discourse on incorporating the value of privacy into these systems. Exploring the connection between privacy and personal (...) autonomy illuminates the instrumental value of privacy and highlights the importance of intentionally embedding the value of privacy into these systems. To translate the value of privacy into concrete design requirements, this study constructs a values hierarchy consisting of values, norms, and design requirements. After analyzing the relationships between privacy and autonomy and identifying norms, the design requirements translated from the norms associated with the components of personal autonomy are specified at the lowest layer. These requirements include a design to prevent unauthorized access and dark patterns and to provide effective and efficient notices and choices. The findings contribute to expanding the requirements for designing the aspect of privacy as a legal requirement to incorporate the value of privacy into systems. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea that it is instrumentally valuable to learn normative truths. We consider an argument for "normative hedging" based on this principle, and examine the structure of decision-making under moral uncertainty that arises from it. But it also turns out that the value of normative information is inconsistent with the principle that learning *empirical* truths is instrumentally valuable. We conclude with a brief comment on "metanormative regress.".

The Value of Evidence thesis (VE) tells us to gather evidence before deciding in any decision problem, if the evidence is free. This appar- ently plausible principle faces two problems. First, it fails on evidence externalism or nonclassical decision theories. Second, it’s not general enough: it tells us to prefer gaining free evidence to gaining no evi- dence, but it doesn’t tell us to prefer gaining more informative evidence to gaining less informative evidence when both are free. This paper (...) defends an alternative value-of-evidence principle that solves the above two problems. We call it ‘the Comparative Value of Evidence for the Resolute (CVER).’ CVER not only generalizes VE to the comparative case but is also compatible with evidence externalism and nonclassical decision theories. Our argument, if successful, broadens the scope of the value-of-evidence principle and shows that it’s more robust than previously imagined. (shrink)

Many philosophers are skeptical about the scientific value of the concept of biological information. However, several have recently proposed a more positive view of ascribing information as an exercise in scientific modeling. I argue for an alternative role: guiding empirical data collection for the sake of theorizing about the evolution of semantics. I clarify and expand on Bergstrom and Rosvall’s suggestion of taking a “diagnostic” approach that defines biological information operationally as a procedure for collecting empirical (...) cases. The more recent modeling-based accounts still perpetuate a theory-centric view of scientific concepts, which motivated philosophers’ misplaced skepticism in the first place. (shrink)

The case describes researchers who are seeking ethics guidance on communicating with participants in a phase-1 COVD-19 vaccine trial about FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines (Wilfond, Duenas, and Johnson 2023). The researchers want help choosing among three options they have identified for encouraging participants to obtain one of the authorized vaccines. We argue that research ethics consultants should consider going beyond this question to address another ethics concern the researchers might have overlooked.

Looks into evaluation of information provision probability from different sources, based on use of linguistic variables. Formation of functions appurtenant for its unclear variables provides for adoption of decisions by the decision maker, in conditions of nonprobabilistic equivocation. The development of market relations in Ukraine increases the independence and responsibility of enterprises in justifying and making management decisions that ensure their effective, competitive activities. As a result of the analysis, it is determined that the condition of economic facilities can (...) be described and determined by the decision-maker, in the presence of the necessary information. The confidence of the decision-maker in the information received is different and the decisions made have a correspondingly different level of information risk. It is important to substantiate the procedure for assessing the numerical extent of information risk in decision-making based on the information obtained in conditions of uncertainty. The use of a linguistic variable in the processing of expert data presented in the form of a matrix of binary relations of values of the membership function, which allowed to move to further processing of knowledge to support decision-making in the management of industrial, commercial, financial and other activities. As a mathematical model for estimating the numerical measure of information risk when making decisions based on the information obtained in conditions of non-stochastic uncertainty, a model has been developed to model natural language uncertainties, which differs from existing ones by formalizing knowledge taking into account uncertainty of input information. Making such a clear decision in a fuzzy environment has appropriate values of effectiveness and risk. The paper proposes all the functions and accessories of indicators of both quantitative nature and qualitative nature to bring their values in the field of definition to one scale. Then the indicator of the effectiveness of decision-making will be a measure of the clarity of the cross-section of fuzzy subsets, which correspond to the introduced indicators of information risk. The condition of economic facilities can be described and determined by the decision-maker, if the necessary information is available. Decision-making on thenumerical measure of information risk must be determined by a set of basic indicators, which can be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Predictive values of indicators should be determined in conditions of nonstochastic uncertainty. In this case, the indicators of a quantitative nature can be determined by fuzzy triangular numbers, which implement a high level of confidence in the subjective judgments of experts. Indicators of qualitative nature should be presented in linguistic variables. The values of the indicators of qualitative nature that are predicted must be considered for all fuzzy variable terms-sets of linguistic variables introduced into consideration. For any fuzzy variable, the introduction to the consideration of a clear set of values as carriers of the α-level of its membership function allows to reduce to a single interpretation of the predicted values of indicators of quantitative and qualitative nature in terms of non-stochastic uncertainty. (shrink)

A recent study suggests that value and quantum states seem to be governed by the same underlying mechanisms. In our recent book titled "Better economics for the Earth: A lesson from quantum and information theories," specifically Chapter 5, we have proposed an informational entropy-based notion of value, drawing on the granular worldview and primary features of quantum mechanics, Shannon’s information theory, and the mindsponge theory. Specifically, the notion suggests that values are created through the interactions of (...) information. But how do information and its interactions lead to values? This research note aims to contribute to the answer to this question. (shrink)

Many seem to think that AI-induced responsibility gaps are morally bad and therefore ought to be avoided. We argue, by contrast, that there is at least a pro tanto reason to welcome responsibility gaps. The central reason is that it can be bad for people to be responsible for wrongdoing. This, we argue, gives us one reason to prefer automated decision-making over human decision-making, especially in contexts where the risks of wrongdoing are high. While we are not the first to (...) suggest that responsibility gaps should sometimes be welcomed, our argument is novel. Others have argued that responsibility gaps should sometimes be welcomed because they can reduce or eliminate the psychological burdens caused by tragic moral choice-situations. By contrast, our argument explains why responsibility gaps should sometimes be welcomed even in the absence of tragic moral choice-situations, and even in the absence of psychological burdens. (shrink)

The paper outlines a new interpretation of informational privacy and of its moral value. The main theses defended are: (a) informational privacy is a function of the ontological friction in the infosphere, that is, of the forces that oppose the information flow within the space of information; (b) digital ICTs (information and communication technologies) affect the ontological friction by changing the nature of the infosphere (re-ontologization); (c) digital ICTs can therefore both decrease and protect informational privacy (...) but, most importantly, they can also alter its nature and hence our understanding and appreciation of it; (d) a change in our ontological perspective, brought about by digital ICTs, suggests considering each person as being constituted by his or her information and hence regarding a breach of one’s informational privacy as a form of aggression towards one’s personal identity. (shrink)

There is a variety of epistemic roles to which photographs are better suited than non-photographic pictures. Photographs provide more compelling evidence of the existence of the scenes they depict than non-photographic pictures. They are also better sources of information about features of those scenes that are easily overlooked. This chapter examines several different attempts to explain the distinctive epistemic value of photographs, and argues that none is adequate. It then proposes an alternative explanation of their epistemic value. (...) The chapter argues that photographs play the epistemic roles they do because they are typically rich sources of depictively encoded information about the scenes they depict, and reliable depictive representations of those scenes. It then explains why photographs differ from non-photographic pictures in both respects. (shrink)

The common use of Shannon’s information, specified for the needs of telecommunications, gives rise to many misunderstandings outside of this context. (e.g. in conceptions of such well-known theorists as C.F. Weizsäcker and J. A. Wheeler). This article shows that the terms of the general definition of information meet the structural information, and Shannon’s information is a special case of it. Similarly, complexity is misunderstood today as exemplified by the concepts of reputable computer scientists, such as S. (...) Lloyd, S. Wolfram and J. Schmidhuber. These theorists use an algorithmic definition of complexity and the so-called logical depth, neither of which meets the intuitive criterion of complexity. Hence, their misconceptions of beauty, art and the universe. It will be shown that the intuitive criterion is met by Abstract Complexity Definition. This definition also fulfils the criterion for a general complexity definition, as it defines complexity of the most general/abstract structure of our reality, that is, binary structure. It also explains such fundamental issues of information theory as the information–energy relationship and the value of information, which are still discussed and need to be clarified. (shrink)

The philosophy of information (PI) is a new area of research with its own field of investigation and methodology. This article, based on the Herbert A. Simon Lecture of Computing and Philosophy I gave at Carnegie Mellon University in 2001, analyses the eighteen principal open problems in PI. Section 1 introduces the analysis by outlining Herbert Simon's approach to PI. Section 2 discusses some methodological considerations about what counts as a good philosophical problem. The discussion centers on Hilbert's famous (...) analysis of the central problems in mathematics. The rest of the article is devoted to the eighteen problems. These are organized into five sections: problems in the analysis of the concept of information, in semantics, in the study of intelligence, in the relation between information and nature, and in the investigation of values. (shrink)

This paper has two distinct but related goals: (1) to identify some of the potential consequences of the Internet for our cognitive abilities and (2) to suggest an approach to evaluate these consequences. I begin by outlining the Google effect, which (allegedly) shows that when we know information is available online, we put less effort into storing that information in the brain. Some argue that this strategy is adaptive because it frees up internal resources which can then be (...) used for other cognitive tasks, whereas others argue that this is maladaptive because it makes us less knowledgeable. I argue that the currently available empirical evidence in cognitive psychology does not support strong conclusions about the negative effects of the Internet on memory. Before we can make value-judgements about the cognitive effects of the Internet, we need more robust and ecologically-valid evidence. Having sketched a more nuanced picture of the Google effect, I then argue that the value of our cognitive abilities is in part intrinsic and in part instrumental, that is, they are both valuable in themselves and determined by the socio-cultural context in which these cognitive abilities are utilised. Focussing on instrumental value, I argue that, in an information society such as ours, having the skills to efficiently navigate, evaluate, compare, and synthesize online information are (under most circumstances) more valuable than having a lot of facts stored in biological memory. This is so, partly because using the Internet as an external memory system has overall benefits for education, navigation, journalism, and academic scholarship. (shrink)

Faced with current urgent calls for more trust in experts, especially in high impact and politically sensitive domains, such as climate science and COVID-19, the complex and problematic nature of public trust in experts and the need for a more critical approach to the topic are easy to overlook. Scepticism – at least in its Humean mitigated form that encourages independent, questioning attitudes – can prove valuable to democratic governance, but stands in opposition to the cognitive dependency entailed by epistemic (...) trust. In this paper, we investigate the tension between the value of mitigated scepticism – understood as the exercise of reason-based doubt in a particular domain – and the need for trust in experts. We offer four arguments in favour of mitigated scepticism: the argument from loss of intellectual autonomy; the argument from democratic deficit; the argument from the normative failures of science; and the argument from past and current injustices. These arguments highlight the tension between the requirements for trust and justified scepticism about the role of experts. One solution, which we reject, is the idea that reliance, rather than trust, is sufficient for the purposes of accommodating experts in policy matters. The solution we endorse is to create a ‘climate of trust’, where questioning experts and expertise is welcomed, but the epistemic trust necessary for action upon information which the public cannot obtain first-hand is enabled and encouraged through structural, institutional, and justice-based measures. (shrink)

Natural history specimens were collected for diverse reasons, but modern, and likely future, uses often diverge from why they were collected. For example, specimens are sometimes integrated into conservation decision-making, where some practitioners claim that specimens may be necessary or extremely important for conservation in general. This is an overstatement. To correct this, I engage with the current literature on specimen collection to show that while specimens have epistemic shortcomings, they can be useful for conservation projects depending on the questions (...) or values of scientists and conservation decision-makers. This modest approach acknowledges that specimens provide a unique information channel while demarcating where and when values intercede into conservation planning. In light of the specimen’s utility for future, sometimes unknown, projects, I also make recommendations for modern specimen collection. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular “information transmitted” interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed. Design/methodology/approach – The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannon’s Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are (...) scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, the similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on “information transmitted” are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli. Findings – Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, “channel capacity” is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence. Research limitations/implications – Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments. Originality/value – This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of “information transmitted”. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments. (shrink)

As sustainable tourism gains increasing attention, understanding the factors that influence travelers' motivation to engage with sustainable travel agents becomes crucial. This study investigates the moderating effect of social media usage on the relationship between the perceived value of websites and motivational factors for sustainable travel agents. The study proposes that social media usage acts as a moderator in shaping the relationship between the perceived value of websites and motivational factors. This study has utilized smart tourism. Therefore, independent (...) variable motivation in terms of informativeness gratification and gratification acted as moderating variables. This study has utilized an online questionnaire adapted from a standardized questionnaire based on the literature review. Moreover, a total of 146 managers were surveyed in which they were required to respond to 55 items that elicited the 7 variables social media use, Propensity, perceived website value, motivating factors, entertainment gratification, informativeness gratification, sustainable smart tourism. The data were analyzed by SPSS and PLS-SEM. The findings indicated that relevance and importance of social media use and sustainable smart tourism. The result revealed that 7 hypotheses had a significant relationship. 3 hypotheses did not show a moderating effect. Overall, this study extends the understanding of sustainable smart tourism. These findings will benefit travel agents’ managers in Malaysia to better understand the role of social media use and utilize it towards developing sustainable sustainable smart tourism. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the idea that there is a sense in which it is meaningful and useful to talk about objective understanding, and that to characterize that notion it is necessary to formulate an account of explanation that makes reference to the beliefs and epistemic goals of the participants in a cognitive enterprise. Using the framework for belief revision developed by Isaac Levi, I analyze the conditions that information must fulfill to be both potentially explanatory and epistemically (...) valuable to an inquiring agent and to a scientific community. To be potentially explanatory, the information must state the relations of probabilistic relevance that the explanans bares to the explanandum. But a potential explanation con only be a bona fide explanation if it becomes part of inquiry, that is, if an agent or a group of agents can see any value in it for their cognitive purposes. I provide a way to evaluate the epistemic value of a potential explanation as a function of its credibility and its informational content. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that the web is a poietically- enabling environment, which both enhances and requires the development of a “constructionist ethics”. We begin by explaining the appropriate concept of “constructionist ethics”, and analysing virtue ethics as the primary example. We then show why CyberEthics (or Computer Ethics, as it is also called) cannot be based on virtue ethics, yet needs to retain a constructionist approach. After providing evidence for significant poietic uses of the web, we argue that (...) ethical constructionism is not only facilitated by the web, but is also what the web requires as an ethics of the digital environment. In conclusion, we relate the present discussion to standard positions in CyberEthics and to a broader project for Information Ethics. (shrink)

Starting from some remarks about the use of models in psychology, Human Information Processing (henceforth called H.I.P.) models which sometimes use computer simulation will be examined. An attempt to show that simulation in psychology does not necessarily imply an H.I.P. approach is then made.

Philosophers of science are increasingly arguing for the importance of doing scientifically- and socially-engaged work, suggesting that we need to reduce barriers to extra-disciplinary engagement and broaden our impact. Yet, we currently lack empirical data to inform these discussions, leaving a number of important questions unanswered. How common is it for philosophers of science to engage other communities, and in what ways are they engaging? What barriers are most prevalent when it comes to broadly disseminating one’s work or collaborating with (...) others? To what extent do philosophers of science actually value an engaged approach? Our project addresses this gap in our collective knowledge by providing empirical data regarding the state of philosophy of science today. We report the results of a survey of 299 philosophers of science about their attitudes towards and experiences with engaging those outside the discipline. Our data suggest that a significant majority of philosophers of science think it is important for non-philosophers to read and make use of their work; most are engaging with communities outside the discipline; and many think philosophy of science, as a discipline, has an obligation to ensure it has a broader impact. Interestingly, however, many of these same philosophers believe engaged work is generally undervalued in the discipline. We think these findings call for cautious optimism on the part of those who value engaged work—while there seems to be more interest in engaging other communities than many assume, significant barriers still remain. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the practice of civil disagreement has robust epistemic benefits and that these benefits enable meaningful forms of reconciliation—across worldview lines and amid the challenging information environment of our age. I then engage two broad groups of objections: either that civil disagreement opposes, rather than promotes, clarity, or else that it does little to help it. If successful, my account gives us reason to include civil disagreement among what Mill calls “the real morality of (...) public discussion,” a fact that should stir us to take more seriously the decline of civility in contemporary life. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature (...) to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies. (shrink)

Civil liberty and privacy advocates have criticized the USA PATRIOT Act (Act) on numerous grounds since it was passed in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. Two of the primary targets of those criticisms are the Act’s sneak-and-peek search provision, which allows law enforcement agents to conduct searches without informing the search’s subjects, and the business records provision, which allows agents to secretly subpoena a variety of information – most notoriously, library borrowing records. Without attending (...) to all of the ways that critics claim the Act burdens privacy, I examine whether those two controversial parts of the Act, the section 213 sneak-and-peak search and the section 215 business records gag-rule provisions, burden privacy as critics charge. I begin by describing the two provisions. Next, I explain why those provisions don’t burden privacy on standard philosophical accounts. Moreover, I argue that they need not conflict with the justifications for people’s claims to privacy, nor do they undermine the value of privacy on the standard accounts. However, rather than simply concluding that the sections don’t burden privacy, I argue that those provisions are problematic on the grounds that they undermine the value of whatever rights to privacy people have. Specifically, I argue that it is important to distinguish rights themselves from the value that those rights have to the rights-holders, and that an essential element of privacy rights having value is that privacy right-holders be able to tell the extent to which they actually have privacy. This element, which is justified by the right-holders’ autonomy interests, is harmed by the two provisions. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify how IT managers' decision styles affect their evaluation of information technology. Design/methodology/approach – Four different decision styles were assessed in a leadership test directed towards IT managers. Each style included two dimensions: confidence judgment ability and decision heuristic usage. Participants belonging to each style were interviewed and their answers analysed with regard to their reasoning about central areas of IT management. Findings – Results suggest that a decision style combining (...) intuitive and analytical capabilities lead to better evaluations of information technology. Originality/value – The results of the present study are valuable for the understanding of how decision styles impact on IT management in everyday life. (shrink)

Epistemic humility, a cornerstone of philosophical and scientific inquiry, emphasizes the recognition of human fallibility and the provisional nature of knowledge. This concept contrasts with epistemic arrogance by promoting a humble acknowledgment of the limits of understanding and a willingness to revise beliefs in light of new evidence. Historical perspectives, from Socrates' dialogues to Descartes' methodological doubt and Hume's critique of induction, illustrate the evolution of epistemic humility as a critical component of skeptical thought. Philosophical reflections on intellectual virtues, such (...) as curiosity and open-mindedness, underscore the importance of embracing uncertainty in the pursuit of truth. Contemporary discourse on epistemic humility addresses its role in scientific progress, public policy, and societal dialogue, highlighting its potential to foster intellectual integrity and informed decision-making amidst complexity and uncertainty. (shrink)

This chapter provides a high-level overview of key ethical issues raised by the use of surveillance technologies, such as digital contact tracing, disease surveillance, and vaccine passports, to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. To some extent, these issues are entirely familiar. I argue that they raise old questions in new form and with new urgency, at the intersection of information ethics, research ethics, and public health. Whenever we deal with data-driven technologies, we have to ask how they fare in relation (...) to important values like privacy, fairness, transparency, and accountability—values emphasized by information ethics scholars. Likewise, when such technologies put individuals at risk in order to drive scientific research and knowledge construction, we have to ask how they implicate values such as autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, and justice—values central to research ethics. And as researchers focusing on health information have long argued, when the data collected by these technologies pertain to individuals and public health, these ethical issues take on a special cast. -/- It is also true, however, that the pandemic has placed these questions in a new and revealing light. I highlight three insights from information ethics and research ethics that can help us navigate this difficult terrain. First, the value of privacy is instrumental, not absolute—there is nothing wrong with asking how to balance privacy against other important values. Second, privacy has both individual and social importance. Weighing privacy, on one hand, and public health, on the other, is not, therefore, a contest between individual and collective interests. Rather, it is an attempt to balance disparate public goods. Third, we ought to put these kinds of ethical decisions in the hands of third parties, rather than leaving them up to those who directly stand to benefit from them. In the case of pandemic surveillance technologies, this should mean more public, democratic oversight. (shrink)

The public and scholars alike largely consider envy to be reprehensible. This judgment of the value of envy commonly results either from a limited understanding of the nature of envy or from a limited understanding of how to determine the value of phenomena. Overcoming this state requires an interdisciplinary collaboration of psychologists and philosophers. That is, broad empirical evidence regarding the nature of envy generated in psychological studies must inform judgments about the value of envy according to (...) sophisticated philosophical standards. We conducted such a collaboration. Empirical research indicates that envy is constituted by multiple components which in turn predict diverse outcomes that may be functional for the self and society. Accordingly, the value of envy is similarly nuanced. Sometimes, envy may have instrumental value in promoting prudentially and morally good outcomes. Sometimes, envy may be non-instrumentally prudentially and morally good. Sometimes, envy may be bad. This nuanced perspective on the value of envy has implications for recommendations on how to deal with envy and paves the way toward future empirical and theoretical investigations on the nature and the value of envy. (shrink)

One of the most prominent myths in analytic philosophy is the so- called “Fregean Axiom”, according to which the reference of a sentence is a truth value. In contrast to this referential semantics, a use-based formal semantics will be constructed in which the logical value of a sentence is not its putative referent but the information it conveys. Let us call by “Question Answer Semantics” (thereafter: QAS) the corresponding formal semantics: a non-Fregean many-valued logic, where the meaning (...) of any sentence is an ordered n-tupled of yes-no answers to corresponding questions. A sample of philosophical problems will be approached in order to justify the relevance of QAS. These include: (1) illocutionary forces, and the logical analysis of speech-acts; (2) the variety of logical negations, and their characterization in terms of restricted ranges of logical values; (3) change in meaning, and the use of dynamic oppositions for belief sets. (shrink)

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – (...) Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas. (shrink)

This Note offers a normative critique of cost-benefit analysis, one informed by deontological moral theory, in the context of the debate over whether tort litigation or a non-tort approach is the appropriate response to mass harm. The first Part argues that the difference between lay and expert intuitions about risk and harm often reflects a difference in normative judgments about the existing facts, rather than a difference in belief about what facts exist, which makes the lay intuitions more defensible. The (...) second Part considers how tort has dealt with this divergence between lay and expert perspectives. It also evaluates how tort's approach has differed from that of public law approaches to accident law, such as legislative compensation and risk regulation by administrative agencies. Ultimately, tort's ability to recognize the value of lay intuitions supports retaining the tort perspective as part of our societal arsenal of responses to risk and harm. This ability can also support a pro-tort perspective in two practical debates in the arena of tort law: that over preemption of tort law by administrative agency judgments, and that over access to tort recovery as part of a no-fault system. (shrink)

According to a bits generation technique, that is, bits can only take a binary value of 0 in the absence of wave function collapse and 1 when wave function collapse occurs, that is, regardless of the value random in which the collapse of the wave function occurs that in the past caused the development of an alternative technique of classic bits to be renounced and remains currently an impossibility in normal science, through series of quantum entanglements, using BCD, (...) EBCDIC or ASCII coding standard in computing, data are teleported surpassing c, from a sender to a receiver, theoretically placed at any distance. This technique is a new discovery with theoretical foundation in the work “Superluminal Data Transmission supported by Quantum Entanglement” (1) by this author, stored, since April 2023, as a preprint, in the ResearchGate, and Philpapers repositories, and pending implementation by communications engineering in a longterm future. In this work it is unequivocally established that the maximum speed c for this type of transmission is false, causing critical break with Relativity. This new technique, unlike the one presented in my previous paper, it is a version much simpler that can be implemented according to the current state of technology, so at present the instantaneous transmission of information can be tested experimentally. (shrink)

Expert knowledge regularly informs personal and civic-decision making. To decide which experts to trust, lay publics —including policymakers and experts from other domains—use different epistemic and non-epistemic cues. Epistemic cues such as honesty, like when experts are forthcoming about conflicts of interest, are a popular way of understanding how people evaluate and decide which experts to trust. However, many other epistemic cues, like the evidence supporting information from experts, are inaccessible to lay publics. Therefore, lay publics simultaneously use second-order (...) social cues in their environment to inform decisions to trust. These second-order social cues, or ‘social indicators of trust’, prevent lay publics from having to trust blindly. Social indicators of trust therefore inform lay publics’ epistemic vigilance, or constant low level-monitoring of testimony from experts. This special issue examines the nature, acquisition and application of social indicators of trust for scientific experts and institutions. It also raises questions about the types of trust asked of lay publics and challenges traditional normative assumptions about the relationship between science and lay publics through study of attitudes, values, and experiences. The issue descriptively re-examines the structure of institutions, their role and methods for ferrying information, as well as how social indicators operate in times of crisis. In this collection of works, we bridge history, science, philosophy of science, science and technology studies, science communication and social epistemology, to broaden the discourse on trust in experts and more accurately reflect the imperfect yet indispensable endeavour that trusting is. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature (...) to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies. (shrink)

Recent authors hold that the role of historical scholarship within contemporary philosophical practice is to question current assumptions, to expose vestiges or to calibrate intuitions. On these views, historical scholarship is dispensable, since these roles can be achieved by nonhistorical methods. And the value of historical scholarship is contingent, since the need for the role depends on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. In this paper I draw an analogy between scientific and philosophical practice, in order (...) to float one role for historical scholarship that is nonreplicable and noncontingent. It has long been acknowledged that cognitive values – features of theories that facilitate understanding, such as ontological parsimony, ideological simplicity, computational ease and fecundity – play a key role within science. The role of some of these values within philosophy also has received attention but left understudied are the values of novelty and conservativeness. These values influence theory choice, the selection of methodology, the setting of research agenda, and the presentation of results; and are best assessed with a historically informed evaluation. This role for historical scholarship is not replicable by nonhistorical methods, and is not contingent on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. (shrink)

Kant is the philosophical tradition's arch-anti-consequentialist – if anyone insists that intentions alone make an action what it is, it is Kant. This chapter takes up Kant's account of the relation between intention and action, aiming both to lay it out and to understand why it might appeal. The chapter first maps out the motivational architecture that Kant attributes to us. We have wills that are organized to action by two parallel and sometimes competing motivational systems. One determines us by (...) way of motives that are sensuous, natural and given from without, the other by motives that are intellectual, rational, and given from within. Each set of motives belongs to a system of laws – natural motives to the laws of nature, rational motives to the laws of freedom. For Kant, all things, including actions, are what they are in virtue of the laws governing them; actions, qua actions, are always governed by laws that govern individual wills. These laws are Kantian maxims, 'or subjective practical laws.' Maxims, for Kant, thus make actions the actions they are. The chapter then maps out the implications of this motivational architecture for Kant's theory of value. Maxims always advert to or 'contain' both ends and means. Ends are always specifications of one of two ultimate ends. Actions have the moral value they have depending on which of two ultimate ends the maxim adverts to. The possibilities are 'happiness,' or gratification of desires with sensuous origins, and 'duty,' or accord with the moral demand to will in ways that respect free rational agency wherever it is found. Only actions aimed at the latter – actions with rational motives – have moral value. Actions aimed at the former – actions with natural motives – though not immoral in themselves, become so when pursuit works against rational motives. For Kant, actions aimed at happiness are ultimately allied with efforts to sustain our 'animal' existence, and so are governed by terms and conditions given by the natural world. Actions aimed at duty, in contrast, are ultimately allied with efforts to impose a rational form on nature, to make it over, so to speak, according to values not given by nature itself. Actions aimed at duty, therefore, create a specifically moral world, one in which mores and norms, formal and informal arrangements, institutions, policies, and so on, realize, harmonize, and promote free rational agency itself. Finally, the chapter addresses motivations for Kant's view. The architecture of will and the theories of action and value he proposes allow Kant to accommodate a host of intuitions and commitments. His view makes room for metaphysically free agency, and for the lived experience of motivational freedom from ever-changing natural desires. It makes room for conflicts within the will while still holding out hope that resolution is possible. It accommodates views that the best human lives engage 'higher' faculties in sustained ways. It identifies a stable, necessary, universal end amidst the evident contingency, pluralism, and instability of most ends. It makes us, and not God or nature, the authors of our moral lives. In the end, Kant's 'anti-consequentialism,' his focus on intentions, is a way of insisting on actions that take their character and value from what should matter most to us, namely individual and collective free rational agency, rather than only and always taking the character of reactive responses to circumstance. (shrink)

Since the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the world has entered a race to develop more capable and powerful AI, including artificial general intelligence (AGI). The development is constrained by the dependency of AI on the model, quality, and quantity of training data, making the AI training process highly costly in terms of resources and environmental consequences. Thus, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the AI training process is essential, especially when the Earth is approaching the climate tipping points and planetary (...) boundaries. It is evident that AI can function better when trained to mimic certain human mental processes. Based on insights from quantum mechanics and the informational entropy-based notion of value, we suggest AI developers can enhance the AI training processes' effectiveness and efficiency by creating and implementing parameter systems that are capable of effectively assigning probabilities to informational quanta. Such systems can help reduce entropy within the system, which lowers the energy required for data storage and processing while decreasing the likelihood of information loss during training. Successfully applying the concept of information entropy-based value in AI development will be crucial for advancing generative AI and achieving AGI in a sustainable manner. (shrink)

Is more information always better? Or are there some situations in which more information can make us worse off? Good (1967) argues that expected utility maximizers should always accept more information if the information is cost-free and relevant. But Good's argument presupposes that you are certain you will update by conditionalization. If we relax this assumption and allow agents to be uncertain about updating, these agents can be rationally required to reject free and relevant information. (...) Since there are good reasons to be uncertain about updating, rationality can require you to prefer ignorance. (shrink)

How much value can our decisions create? We argue that unless our current understanding of physics is wrong in fairly fundamental ways, there exists an upper limit of value relevant to our decisions. First, due to the speed of light and the definition and conception of economic growth, the limit to economic growth is a restrictive one. Additionally, a related far larger but still finite limit exists for value in a much broader sense due to the physics (...) of information and the ability of physical beings to place value on outcomes. We discuss how this argument can handle lexicographic preferences, probabilities, and the implications for infinite ethics and ethical uncertainty. (shrink)

This book is the result of a collective research effort performed during many years in both Sweden and Spain. It is the result of attempting to develop a new field of research that could we denominate «human act informatics.» The goal has been to use the technologies of information to the study of the human act in general, including embodied acts and disembodied acts. The book presents a theory of the quantification of the informational value of human acts (...) as order, opposing the living order against entropy. We present acting as a set of decisions and choices aimed to create order and to impose Modernity. Karl Popper’s frequency theory of probability is applied to characterize human acts regarding their degree of freedom and to set up a scale of order in human decisions. The traditional theory of economics and social science characterize the human act as rational, utilitarian and ethical. Our results emphasize that the unique significance of an act lies in its capacity to generate order. An adequate methodology is then presented to defend such hypothesis according to which, the rationality respective irrationality of acting, is in fact only a function of the act’s organizational capacity. From this perspective, it has been necessary to define «order» respective «disorder» as operative concepts that allowed the comparison of the organizational differences generated by each kind of act. According to the presented conclusions, the spontaneity of living, as unconscious thinking, dreaming, loving, etc. and the mainstream of the human acts, are utilitarian, but in an irrational way; they are rooted in unconscious drifts and therefore must be considered irrational-utility acts. (shrink)

This article proposes a new interpretation of mutual information. We examine three extant interpretations of MI by reduction in doubt, by reduction in uncertainty, and by divergence. We argue that the first two are inconsistent with the epistemic value of information assumed in many applications of MI: the greater is the amount of information we acquire, the better is our epistemic position, other things being equal. The third interpretation is consistent with EVI, but it is faced (...) with the problem of measure sensitivity and fails to justify the use of MI in giving definitive answers to questions of information. We propose a fourth interpretation of MI by reduction in expected inaccuracy, where inaccuracy is measured by a strictly proper monotonic scoring rule. It is shown that the answers to questions of information given by MI are definitive whenever this interpretation is appropriate, and that it is appropriate in a wide range of applications with epistemic implications. _1_ Introduction _2_ Formal Analyses of the Three Interpretations _2.1_ Reduction in doubt _2.2_ Reduction in uncertainty _2.3_ Divergence _3_ Inconsistency with Epistemic Value of Information _4_ Problem of Measure Sensitivity _5_ Reduction in Expected Inaccuracy _6_ Resolution of the Problem of Measure Sensitivity _6.1_ Alternative measures of inaccuracy _6.2_ Resolution by strict propriety _6.3_ Range of applications _7_ Global Scoring Rules _8_ Conclusion. (shrink)

This study aims to ascertain why parents in rural and semi-rural areas of Bamyan province in Afghanistan choose and prefer to send their children to fee-charging private schools while free public schools are accessible. In addition, this study also aims to understand what the primary source of information is when parents choose a school. The focus in answering these questions will be on the parents' perceptions that inform their decision when they choose a school. Therefore, this study investigates parents' (...) perceived indicators regarding their children's schooling costs, facilities, proximity, teacher commitment to school and students rather than the actual measurements (for example, parents' assessment of teacher's competence level and official test results). This research utilized a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative data was derived from 270 detailed questionnaires, and the qualitative data was collected through 10 structured focus group discussions. The results highlight key factors that significantly influence parents' choices, including teaching quality, school management, proximity, and financial considerations. Considerable disparities emerge between private and public schools, particularly in perceived teaching quality, teacher qualifications, student learning support, and discipline. Moreover, the study reveals challenges related to the accessibility of private schools and concerns regarding corruption within public school administration. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and education stakeholders, informing them the development of targeted interventions and strategies to address these challenges and empowering parents to make well-informed decisions regarding their children's education. In a country like Afghanistan, where education is largely controlled and directed by a central system, the voices of parents in the educational process are often overlooked. This research aims to fill this notable gap. By delving into what parents think and feel about their children's education, we're uncovering valuable insights that have been largely absent in past discussions. This is not just about numbers and policies; it is about understanding the human element in education, which is all too vital in a place where centralized decisions dominate the landscape. This paper, therefore, stands out as it brings to the forefront the often-unheard voices of parents, making a significant contribution to the field. (shrink)

This paper outlines a quantitative theory of strongly semantic information (TSSI) based on truth-values rather than probability distributions. The main hypothesis supported in the paper is that the classic quantitative theory of weakly semantic information (TWSI), based on probability distributions, assumes that truth-values supervene on factual semantic information, yet this principle is too weak and generates a well-known semantic paradox, whereas TSSI, according to which factual semantic information encapsulates truth, can avoid the paradox and is more (...) in line with the standard conception of what generally counts as semantic information. After a brief introduction, section two outlines the semantic paradox implied by TWSI, analysing it in terms of an initial conflict between two requisites of a quantitative theory of semantic information. In section three, three criteria of semantic information equivalence are used to provide a taxonomy of quantitative approaches to semantic information and introduce TSSI. In section four, some further desiderata that should be fulfilled by a quantitative TSSI are explained. From section five to section seven, TSSI is developed on the basis of a calculus of truth-values and semantic discrepancy with respect to a given situation. In section eight, it is shown how TSSI succeeds in solving the paradox. Section nine summarises the main results of the paper and indicates some future developments. (shrink)

Human actions and decisions are most of the times not only grounded on emotional reactions, they are irrationally debasing. While such emotions and heuristics were perhaps suitable for dealing with life in the Stone Age, they are woefully inadequate in the Silicon Age. The substitution of traditional news agencies and communication platforms in Nigeria with social media networks has not only increased human capacities, it has aided the common good and further eased communication and increased the human knowledge base. For (...) instance, the Silicon Valley in the state of California in the United State of America has proved the extent to which human ingenuity can be exerted in beneficial ways. Here in, the top of the multibillion-dollar communication companies like Apple, eBay, Cisco, Lockheed, Hewlett Packard (HP), Google, Netflix, Facebook, Oracle, Tesla, etc. whose yearly budgets far exceed the entire yearly budget of Nigeria, has proved that, ICT remains the building blocks of contemporary communities. The state of California for instance prides herself as the 6th largest economy of the world after France and Brazil. This romantic picture of ICT is but only one chapter of the ICT divide. In today’s world, the scale and speed of the highly partisan news and falsehoods that circulate in the human environment is deafening. In politics and governance for instance, the populist have exploited the ICT effectively and without restraints, to access power and authority. Today, we are in the era of post-truth, an era in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. An era that harbours corruption of intellectual integrity and damage to the whole fabric of democracy. The battle to protect information integrity and expose fake news becomes sine qua non. We shall in this paper explore the dark side of the age of information, a side that has been exploited by the media mavens, political hacks, and ideological propagandists who promote lies, illusion, confusion, and other forms of demented or manipulated imagination. In doing this, we shall proceed as follows: i. Historicize the concept of ‘fake news’ here referred to as post-truth. ii. Interrogate the concept of ‘information’ and its goal in human affairs iii. Evaluate the nexus between ‘truth’ values in ‘information’, ‘Misinformation’ and ‘dis-information’ iv. Situate the role of Philosophy in the era of post-truth. (shrink)

Informing others about the world is often a helpful act. In this paper, I study agents who conduct experiments to gather information about the world, committing in advance to fully disclose the nature of the experiment together with all experimental findings. While this appears to be a benign activity, I characterize a type of exploitative informing that is possible even within this restricted setup. I show how exploitative informants use public experiments to predictably manipulate interlocutors’ beliefs and actions to (...) their own advantage. I discuss epistemic and practical grounds on which it may be permissible for agents to resist acts of exploitative informing, then conclude by discussing implications for epistemic injustice and duties to gather evidence. (shrink)

The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential for ensuring that communities determine what systems ought to be sustained. Discourse analysis of dialogue with Michigan direct marketing farmers suggests eight sustainability values – economic efficiency, community connectedness, stewardship, justice, ecologism, self-reliance, preservationism and health – which informed the practices of these farmers. Whereas common heuristics of sustainability suggest values can be pursued harmoniously, we discuss (...) how this typology reflects the more intricate project of balancing values in tension with one another. (shrink)