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    Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

23 March 2022|

 
Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

Belief polarisation occurs when two agents’ posterior beliefs move farther away from one another with respect to the same proposition or set of propositions. Polarisation has traditionally been regarded as a failure of rationality, e.g., the result of cognitive biases influencing the belief states of at least […]

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    Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

24 November 2021|

 
Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

Faced with two or more options, a decision-maker may choose a riskier option for herself even if this option does not maximize her expected utility. When it comes to other-regarding choices, it is less clear whether a decision-maker may permissibly choose a riskier option that does not maximize the expected […]

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    Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

10 November 2021|

 
Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

I will look at cases in which a proposition is supported by an agent’s evidence at an earlier time but not by their evidence at a later time, even though the agent does not receive any new information that is relevant to the proposition. In such a case, I argue, the […]

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    Heather Browning (LSE): “Assessing Measures of Animal Welfare”

Heather Browning (LSE): “Assessing Measures of Animal Welfare”

20 October 2021|

 

Heather Browning (LSE): “Assessing Measures of Animal Welfare”

There are many decision contexts in which we require accurate information on animal welfare, but many of the methods currently used for estimating welfare are subjective and unreliable. Here, I look at how we might apply principled methods from animal welfare science to arrive at more accurate scores, which will […]

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    Alex Voorhoeve & Veronika Luptakova (LSE): “How Do People Balance Death Against Lesser Burdens?”

Alex Voorhoeve & Veronika Luptakova (LSE): “How Do People Balance Death Against Lesser Burdens?”

19 May 2021|

 
Alex Voorhoeve & Veronika Luptakova (LSE): “How Do People Balance Death Against Lesser Burdens?”

When the number of people one can save from harm is fixed and the difference in harm one can save people from is substantial, standard principles for health resource allocation prioritize by severity. Standard principles are also fully aggregative: one death can be outweighed […]

Zoë Johnson King (USC): “Varieties of Moral Mistake”

17 March 2021|

 
Zoë Johnson King (USC): “Varieties of Moral Mistake”

Some philosophers think that if someone acts wrongly while falsely believing that her action is permissible, this moral mistake cannot excuse her wrongdoing. And some think that this is because it is morally blameworthy to fail to appreciate the moral significance of non-moral features of an action of which one […]

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    Marc Fleurbaey (Paris School of Economics): “Measuring Well-Being and Lives Worth Living”

Marc Fleurbaey (Paris School of Economics): “Measuring Well-Being and Lives Worth Living”

3 March 2021|

 

Marc Fleurbaey (Paris School of Economics): “Measuring Well-Being and Lives Worth Living”

We study the measurement of well-being when individuals have heterogeneous preferences, including different conceptions of a life worth living. When individuals differ in the conception of a life worth living, the equivalent income can regard an individual whose life is not worth living as being better […]

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    Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

10 February 2021|

 

Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

Are there ever good epistemic reasons to misrepresent base rates? I investigate this question in the context of recent legislation restricting the presentation of gender stereotypes, and the representation of minority groups in children’s books. I argue that our hesitancy around certain base rates makes sense […]

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    Julia Staffel (Colorado): “Updating Incoherent Credences – Extending the Dutch Strategy Argument for Conditionalization”

Julia Staffel (Colorado): “Updating Incoherent Credences – Extending the Dutch Strategy Argument for Conditionalization”

20 January 2021|

 

Julia Staffel (Colorado): “Updating Incoherent Credences – Extending the Dutch Strategy Argument for Conditionalization”

In this paper, we ask: how should an agent who has incoherent credences update when they learn new evidence? The standard Bayesian answer for coherent agents is that they should conditionalize; however, this updating rule is not defined for incoherent starting credences. We show […]

Johanna Thoma (LSE): “Time for Caution”

25 November 2020|

 

Johanna Thoma (LSE): “Time for Caution”

Precautionary principles are frequently appealed to both in public policy and in discussions of good individual decision-making. They prescribe omission or reduction of an activity, or taking precautionary measures whenever potential harmful effects of the activity surpass some threshold of likelihood and severity. One crucial appeal of precautionary principles has been that […]