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)

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)

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)

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 problem of merging several ontologies has important applications in the Semantic Web, medical ontology engineering and other domains where information from several distinct sources needs to be integrated in a coherent manner.We propose to view ontology merging as a problem of social choice, i.e. as a problem of aggregating the input of a set of individuals into an adequate collective decision. That is, we propose to view ontology merging as ontology aggregation. As a first step in this (...) direction, we formulate several desirable properties for ontology aggregators, we identify the incompatibility of some of these properties, and we define and analyse several simple aggregation procedures. Our approach is closely related to work in judgment aggregation, but with the crucial difference that we adopt an open world assumption, by distinguishing between facts not included in an agent’s ontology and facts explicitly negated in an agent’s ontology. (shrink)

Extensive measurement is the standard measurement-theoretic approach for constructing a ratio scale. It involves the comparison of objects that can be concatenated in an additively representable way. This paper studies the implications of extensively measurable welfare for social choice theory. We do this in two frameworks: an Arrovian framework with a fixed population and no interpersonal comparisons, and a generalized framework with variable populations and full interpersonal comparability. In each framework we use extensive measurement to introduce novel domain (...) restrictions, independence conditions, and constraints on social evaluation. We prove a welfarism theorem for these domains and characterize the social welfare functions that satisfy the axioms of extensive measurement at both the individual and social levels. The main results are simple axiomatizations of strong dictatorship in the Arrovian framework and classical utilitarianism in the generalized framework. (shrink)

The social welfare functional approach to social choice theory fails to distinguish a genuine change in individual well-beings from a merely representational change due to the use of different measurement scales. A generalization of the concept of a social welfare functional is introduced that explicitly takes account of the scales that are used to measure well-beings so as to distinguish between these two kinds of changes. This generalization of the standard theoretical framework results in a more (...) satisfactory formulation of welfarism, the doctrine that social alternatives are evaluated and socially ranked solely in terms of the well-beings of the relevant individuals. This scale-dependent form of welfarism is axiomatized using this framework. The implications of this approach for characterizing classes of social welfare orderings are also considered. (shrink)

An analogue of Arrow’s theorem has been thought to limit the possibilities for multi-criterial theory choice. Here, an example drawn from Toy Science, a model of theories and choice criteria, suggests that it does not. Arrow’s assumption that domains are unrestricted is inappropriate in connection with theory choice in Toy Science. There are, however, variants of Arrow’s theorem that do not require an unrestricted domain. They require instead that domains are, in a technical sense, ‘rich’. Since there (...) are rich domains in Toy Science, such theorems do constrain theory choice to some extent—certainly in the model and perhaps also in real science. (shrink)

We introduce a new theorem in social choice theory built on a path integral approach which will show that, under some reasonable conditions, there is a unique way to aggregate individual preferences based on fuzzy sets into a social preference based on probabilities, and that this way is invariant under any permutation of alternatives. We then apply this theorem to the case of democratic decision making with data of the behaviour and voting preferences of voting agents and (...) show that there is a tradeoff between fairness and efficiency and that no voting system can achieve both simultaneously. (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)

How do social norms influence our choices? And does the presence of biased norms affect what we owe to each other? Looking at empirical research relating to PrEP rollout in HIV prevention policy, a...

This article is featured in a special issue dedicated to theme, "the human being in the digital era: awareness, critical thinking and political space in the age of the internet and artificial intelligence." In this article, I consider the way that social-media companies nudge us to spend more time on their platforms, and I argue that, in principle, these nudges are morally permissible: they are not manipulative and do not violate any obvious moral rules. The moral problem, I argue, (...) is not with nudging in principle but is instead with the fact that users are being nudged towards something bad for them. In practice, this often involves being nudged to spend an unhealthy amount of time using a social-media app or being nudged towards content that is bad for us, such as by promoting eating-disorder content to young girls. Since nudging is morally permissible, it is open to these companies to use the same technologies to nudge us towards the good. (shrink)

This chapter explores a philosophical hypothesis about the nature of (some) probabilities encountered in social sciences. It should be of interest to those with philosophical concerns about the foundations of probability, and to social scientists and philosophers of science who are somewhat puzzled by the nature of probability in social domains. As will become clear below, the chapter is not intended as a contribution to an empirical methodology such as a particular way of applying statistics.

Within the family, siblings work to create separate, stable social identities. One of the jobs of language socialization is the acquisition and appreciation of appropriate forms with which to perform the acts and stances which create social role. Children learn which roles are expected of them, and which forms are appropriate for the enactment of these roles in part through "trying on" various roles which may then be ratified or rejected by other members of the family. In addition (...) to ratifying sibling roles, however, older siblings may be involved in a struggle to maintain their own local position. This paper is particularly interested in how older siblings guide younger siblings' socialization through ratification of social stance, while working to maintain their own role within the family hierarchy. (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)

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)

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept in climate change economics. This chapter explains the SCC and investigates it philosophically. As is widely acknowledged, any SCC calculation requires the analyst to make choices about the infamous topic of discount rates. But to understand the nature and role of discounting, one must understand how that concept—and indeed the SCC concept itself—is yoked to the concept of a value function, whose job is to take ways the world could (...) be across indefinite timespans and to rank them from better to worse. A great deal, therefore, turns on the details of the value function and on just what is meant by “better” and “worse.” This chapter seeks to explicate these and related issues, and then to situate them within the evolving landscape of federal climate policy in the United States. (shrink)

Many fields (social choice, welfare economics, recommender systems) assume people express what benefits them via their 'revealed preferences'. Revealed preferences have well-documented problems when used this way, but are hard to displace in these fields because, as an information source, they are simple, universally applicable, robust, and high-resolution. In order to compete, other information sources (about participants' values, capabilities and functionings, etc) would need to match this. I present a conception of values as *attention policies resulting from constitutive (...) judgements*, and use it to build an alternative preference relation, Meaningful Choice, which retains many desirable features of revealed preference. (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)

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)

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and how do such explanations relate to individualistic ones? This article explores recent philosophical debates concerning the nature and usages of social structural explanation. I distinguish between two central kinds of social structural explanation: those that are autonomous from psychology, and those that are not. This distinction will help (...) clarify the explanatory power that each type of SSE has, points of convergence with methodological traditions such as critical theory and rational choice theory, and the difficulties that each type of SSE faces. (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)

Food prices are a daily concern in many households’ decision-making, especially when people want to have healthier diets. Employing Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 710 Indonesian citizens, we found that people from wealthier households are less likely to have concerns about food prices. However, the degree of health considerations in food consumption was found to moderate against the above association. In other words, people of higher income-based social classes may worry more about food prices if (...) they care more about the health impacts of their food choices. These findings provide more insights for policymakers on the psychological aspects of promoting the balance between finance and health in food consumption. (shrink)

Rawls’s consideration not to include the choice of economic systems as part of a theory of justice is inconsistent with his comments on redistribution and the political effects of economic inequality. When Rawls’s discussion of economic systems and his discussion of economic inequalities is examined, it is apparent that the selection of economic systems is a pertinent topic for a theory of justice. The propensity for the primary social good of self-respect to be satisfied can be affected by (...) the selection of economic systems. Rawls has incorrectly determined the selection of economic systems to be unimportant if different economic systems can be more advantageous to the satisfaction of self-respect than others. When socialism and Rawls’s version of regulated capitalism are compared, socialism is a maximin solution, and accordingly will be selected by people within the original position under the veil of ignorance. (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)

Social scientists appeal to various “structures” in their explanations including public policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies. Significant debate surrounds the explanatory relevance of these factors for various outcomes such as health, behavioral, and economic patterns. This paper provides a causal account of social structural explanation that is motivated by Haslanger (2016). This account suggests that social structure can be explanatory in virtue of operating as a causal constraint, which is a causal factor with unique characteristics. (...) A novel causal framework is provided for understanding these explanations–this framework addresses puzzles regarding the mysterious causal influence of social structure, how to understand its relation to individual choice, and what makes it the main explanatory (and causally responsible) factor for various outcomes. (shrink)

The practice of screening potential users of reproductive services is of profound social and political significance. Access screening is inconsistent with the principles of equality and self-determination, and violates individual and group human rights. Communities that strive to function in accord with those principles should not permit access screening, even screening that purports to be a benign exercise of professional discretion. Because reproductive choice is controversial, regulation by law may be required in most jurisdictions to provide effective protection (...) for reproductive rights. In Canada, for example, equal access can, and should be, guaranteed by federal regulations imposing strict conditions on the licences of fertility clinics. (shrink)

Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a (...) given concept might be measurable on different types of scales—e.g., some ordinal and some cardinal. An underappreciated impossibility theorem due to Anna Khmelnitskaya shows that seemingly plausible constraints on aggregation across scale types are inconsistent. This impossibility threatens to render the notion of overall Fness incoherent. We attempt to defuse this threat, arguing that the impossibility depends on an overly restrictive conception of measurement and of how measurement constrains aggregation. Adopting a more flexible—and, we think, more perspicuous—conception of measurement opens an array of possibilities for aggregation across disparate scale types. (shrink)

This paper argues that social media companies’ power to regulate communication in the public sphere illustrates a novel type of domination. The idea is that, since social media companies can partially dictate the terms of citizens’ political participation in the public sphere, they can arbitrarily interfere with the choices individuals make qua citizens. I contend that social media companies dominate citizens in two different ways. First, I focus on the cases in which social media companies exercise (...) direct control over political speech. They exercise quasi-public power over citizens because their regulation of speech on social media platforms implies the capacity to arbitrarily interfere with citizens’ democratic contestation in the political system. Second, companies’ algorithmic governance entails the capacity to interfere with citizens’ choices about what mode of discursive engagement they endorse in their relationships with fellow citizens. By raising the cost of deliberative engagement, companies narrow citizens’ choice menu. (shrink)

This dissertation identifies and responds to a problem for liberal relational egalitarians. There is a prima facie worry about the compatibility of liberalism and relational egalitarianism, concerning the requirements of equality in informal social life. Liberalism at least involves a commitment to leaving individuals substantial discretion to pursue their own conceptions of the good. Relational equality is best understood as a kind of deliberative practice about social institutions and practices. Patterns of otherwise innocuous social choices (e.g., where (...) to live, whom to befriend or marry) can create emergent, severe differentials in power, status, and influence, and when they do they can threaten relational equality. If relational equality required individuals to subordinate personal choices to egalitarian considerations, it would run into conflict with liberal commitments. In response, I defend the value of accepting an imperfect realization of relational equality. What I call fair relational equality demands that members of society treat some informal social norms and practices as part of the basic structure of society, in need of justification. Three practices are required to meet that demand. First, the relational-egalitarian society must develop institutional strategies to preempt or mitigate tendencies toward emergent inequality as they are identified. Second, members of society must engage in broad social deliberation about the norms and expectations of informal social interaction. Third, they must be willing to reform social practices where doing so does not impinge on important personal projects and values. (shrink)

Argues that choice, as a form of interpretation, is completely intertwined with the development of both sexual orientation and sexual identity. Sexual orientation is not simply a given, or determined aspect of personality.

This paper contains my second attempt to pastiche the Lacanian philosopher and social theorist Renata Salecl. The pastiche responds to the theories of social inequality and education of Pierre Bourdieu.

Nowadays, it is thought that there are only two approaches to political economy: public finance and public choice; however, this research aims to introduce a new insight by investigating scholastic sources. We study the relevant classic books from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries and reevaluate the scholastic literature based on public finance and public choice doctrines. The findings confirm that the government is the institution for realizing the common good according to a scholastic attitude. Therefore, scholastic thinkers (...) saw a typical government mission based on their essentialist attitude toward human happiness. Social conflicts and lack of social consent are the product of diversification in ends and desires; hence, if the ends of humans were unified, there would be no conflict of interest. Accordingly, if the government acts according to its assigned mission, the lack of public consent is not significant. Based on the scholastic point of view, this study introduces the third approach to political economy, which can be considered an analytical synthesis of classical doctrines. -/- . (shrink)

This paper draws some bold conclusions from modest premises. My topic is an old one, the Neohumean view of practical rationality. First, I show that this view consists of two independent claims, instrumentalism and subjectivism. Most critics run these together. Instrumentalism is entailed by many theories beyond Neohumeanism, viz. by any theory that says rational actions maximize something. Second, I give a new argument against instrumentalism, using simple counterexamples. This argument systematically undermines consequentialism and rational choice theory, I show, (...) using detailed examples of their many social science applications. There is no obvious fix. (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)

Within the social sciences, much controversy exists about which status should be ascribed to the rationality assumption that forms the core of rational choice theories. Whilst realists argue that the rationality assumption is an empirical claim which describes real processes that cause individual action, instrumentalists maintain that it amounts to nothing more than an analytically set axiom or ‘as if’ hypothesis which helps in the generation of accurate predictions. In this paper, I argue that this realist-instrumentalist debate about (...) rational choice theory can be overcome once it is realised that the rationality assumption is neither an empirical description nor an ‘as if’ hypothesis, but a normative claim. (shrink)

Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a (...) strong potential for social robots to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future. (shrink)

I examine the once popular claim according to which interpersonal comparisons of welfare are necessary for social choice. I side with current social choice theorists in emphasizing that, on a narrow construal, this necessity claim is refuted beyond appeal. However, I depart from the opinion presently prevailing in social choice theory in highlighting that on a broader construal, this claim proves not only compatible with, but even comforted by, the current state of the field. (...) I submit that all in all, the most accurate philosophical assessment consists not in flatly rejecting this necessity claim, but in accepting it in a suitably revised form. (shrink)

There is a surprising disconnect between formal rational choice theory and philosophical work on reasons. The one is silent on the role of reasons in rational choices, the other rarely engages with the formal models of decision problems used by social scientists. To bridge this gap, we propose a new, reason-based theory of rational choice. At its core is an account of preference formation, according to which an agent’s preferences are determined by his or her motivating reasons, (...) together with a ‘weighing relation’ between different combinations of reasons. By explaining how someone’s preferences may vary with changes in his or her motivating reasons, our theory illuminates the relationship between deliberation about reasons and rational choices. Although primarily positive, the theory can also help us think about how those preferences and choices ought to respond to normative reasons. (shrink)

This paper contains my attempt to pastiche the Lacanian philosopher and social theorist Renata Salecl. The pastiche focuses on the effects of coronavirus on liberal societies, the invasion of Ukraine, and offers a definition which I think is of interest to analytic philosophy.

Compatibilism is the view that determinism is compatible with acting freely and being morally responsible. Incompatibilism is the opposite view. It is often claimed that compatibilism or incompatibilism is a natural part of ordinary social cognition. That is, it is often claimed that patterns in our everyday social judgments reveal an implicit commitment to either compatibilism or incompatibilism. This paper reports five experiments designed to identify such patterns. The results support a nuanced hybrid account: The central tendencies in (...) ordinary social cognition are compatibilism about moral responsibility, compatibilism about positive moral accountability, neither compatibilism nor incompatibilism about negative moral accountability, compatibilism about choice for actions with positive outcomes, and incompatibilism about choice for actions with negative or neutral outcomes. (shrink)

In this paper we carefully study the problem of liberty as it applies to school choice, and whether there ought to be restricted liberty in the case of homeschooling. We examine three prominent concerns that might be brought against homeschooling, viz., that it aggravates social inequality, worsens societal conflict and works against the best interests of children. To examine the tensions that occur between parental liberty, children's interests, and state oversight, we consider the case of homeschooling in the (...) Dutch context. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the consensual model in law and argues that if substantive justice is to be the goal of law, the use of individual choice as a legal criterion for distributive and retributive purposes must be curtailed and made subject to substantive considerations. Substantive justice arguably requires that human rights to life, well-being, and the commodities essential to life and well-being, be given priority whenever a societal decision is made. If substantive justice is a collective (...) societal responsibility, the individual cannot be justly rewarded or punished for his or her choices with respect to life, well-being and essential commodities insofar as these choices are justified or excused by standards of substantive justice. Societal conditions and institutional arrangements should be recognized as grounds for justification and excuse because they may impose limits and constraints on the choices available to an individual that are as unavoidable and compelling as those imposed by chance or by another human being. (shrink)

REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the richness and range of (...) Kochan's discussion [...]. There is a great deal in this foundational portion of Kochan's discussion that I find tremendously interesting and engaging [...]." (David R. Cerbone, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science) ---- REVIEW (3): "Science as Social Existence will be of interest not only to Heidegger scholars but to anyone engaged in science and technology studies. [...] This is an informative and original book. Kochan should be praised for his clear, pleasant-to-read prose." (Michael Butler, in CHOICE). (shrink)

Illusionism treats the almost universally held belief in our ability to make free choices as an erroneous, though beneficent, idea. According to this view, it is sadly true, though virtually impossible to believe, that none of a person’s choices are avoidable and ‘up to him’: any claim to the effect that they are being naïveté or, in the case of those who know better, pretense. Indeed, the implications of this skepticism are so disturbing, pace Spinoza, that it must not be (...) allowed to see the light of intellectual day, confined to the nether regions of consciousness. Even those who have ‘done the philosophy’ and disabused themselves here should nevertheless (somehow) continue believing in free will, lest they come to regard our lives as meaningless, spreading despair and social upheaval. Thus, the “Illusionists” who propound this view are themselves circumspect in doing so. -/- But is escaping the (putative) truth really possible here? Could a disabused philosopher ever return to something like his former intellectual innocence? Self-deception may not be possible; but would an attempt at it reveal anything significant about choice formation? If one were to try to regain one’s illusion, what would one realize? I shall argue here that one would reflectively discover precisely the opposite of what the Illusionists contend- that there are indeed free choices. Let us begin by considering the inconsistency that supposedly entails the illusion of free will. (shrink)

The close association of particular races with particular classes invites a means to exhibit disdain for a race via class. Class and race do not simply occupy a list of social problems, because generally, specific races correlate with particular classes. Racism is presently unacceptable, but not classism. We may feel sympathy for the poor, but we do not refrain from disdain. The disdain of the poor centers on Neoclassical economics’ insistence on choice in regards to class. The language (...) of choice does not circumscribe race. Michel Foucault’s work illustrates that the persistent correlation of race and class is not merely sociological but conceptual. Such close associations of particular races with particular classes serve as a means to generate essentialisms that express racism through classism. (shrink)

By introducing elements of phenomenological philosophy to the analysis of human needs in economics; from Sartrean postulates as well as the nature and essence of individual’s needs, has been revealed a theorethical framework that serves to ponder human being’s existential behavior by means of their phenomenologic social choices and welfare. Defining a planning agent under strong assumptions of rationality and projective efficacious capabilities, the Arrow’s theorem has been proved for the economic agent aware of its finitude in this world.

What would be a fair model for flood insurance? Catastrophic flooding has become increasingly frequent in the UK and, with climate change, is likely to become even more frequent in the future. With the UK's current flood insurance regime ending in 2013, we argues that: -/- - there is an overwhelming case for rejecting a free market in flood insurance after 2013; - this market-based approach threatens to leave many thousands of properties uninsurable, leading to extensive social blight; - (...) there are a number of possible flood insurance models that would be fairer and more sustainable. -/- We outline three approaches to 'fairness' in flood insurance, and argues that the second and third of these would be the most 'solidaristic' – i.e. those at lower risk of flooding would contribute to the support of people at higher risk: -/- 'pure actuarial fairness' – insurance costs directly reflect the level of risk faced by individuals; 'choice-sensitive fairness' – insurance costs should reflect only those risks that result from each individual's choices; 'fairness as social justice' – insurance should be provided independently of individuals' risks and choices when covering basic requirements of social justice. (shrink)

This chapter of the Handbook of Utility Theory aims at covering the connections between utility theory and social ethics. The chapter first discusses the philosophical interpretations of utility functions, then explains how social choice theory uses them to represent interpersonal comparisons of welfare in either utilitarian or non-utilitarian representations of social preferences. The chapter also contains an extensive account of John Harsanyi's formal reconstruction of utilitarianism and its developments in the later literature, especially when society faces (...) uncertainty rather than probabilistic risk. (shrink)