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 […]
Franz Dietrich (CNRS): “Dynamically Rational Judgment Aggregation”
A key goal in judgment aggregation theory has always been to make collective judgments rational. So far, rationality has been understood in purely static terms: as coherence of judgments at a given time, where ‘coherence’ could for instance mean consistency, or completeness, or deductive closure, or combinations thereof. By contrast, this […]
Franz Dietrich (PSE & CNRS) & Kai Spiekermann (LSE): “Does Deliberation Improve Voting Outcomes”
Does prior deliberation increase the epistemic quality of majority voting? This depends on whether the deliberators have private information to share (they are, in a certain sense, “diverse”) and on how the information is aggregated. Without prior deliberation, voting can display three epistemic failures: […]
The Modern Mind
We trace the development of our modern ideas about the mind, from the highly influential work of Descartes and the impact of Darwinian evolution to more recent accounts of the ‘extended’ mind and the enhancements made possible by new technologies. Why is Descartes so important? What changed with Darwin? And in what ways have technological advances […]
Sean A. Valles (Michigan State): “Housing security’s place in a ‘Culture of Health’: Lessons from the pandemic housing crises in the US and England”
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the US and England, it quickly proved to be particularly deadly for people experiencing homelessness. Soon afterward, the economic impacts of the pandemic began creating new housing security […]
Who’s a Good Boy?
Do non-human animals have morals? Can chimpanzees tell right from wrong? Do dolphins think about what they ought to do? And can a dog really be good? Recent scientific work can shed light on these issues, but they also take us to the heart of two great philosophical questions: what does it mean to […]
James Wills (LSE): “Classical Particle Indistinguishability, Precisely.”
I present an analysis of classical particle indistinguishability as ‘observational indistinguishability’ in a certain mathematically precise sense. I will argue that this leads to three interesting and welcome consequences in the foundations of statistical mechanics: (1) The identification and resolution of shortcomings in the ongoing debate concerning the solution to the […]
The Importance of Not Being Earnest
We explore what’s philosophically interesting about comedy. Both have a lot in common: showing up the ordinary as odd, critiquing the status quo, hecklers… But can humour be a source of knowledge? What does it tell us about how we interact with one another? What role does it play in our social […]
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 […]
Not Suitable for Work
When it comes to work, is less more? Bertrand Russell wrote that ‘immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous’. In more recent times, organisations from Microsoft to the Wellcome Trust have experimented with a four-day week, and advocates argue that shorter working weeks will solve everything from unemployment to […]
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