Users’ non-sustainable consumption behaviors are affecting the sustainability of access-based services, but ABS firms can utilize messaging strategies to persuade users to curtail their non-sustainable consumption behaviors. Through two online scenario-based experiments in China, this study determined that: Compared with rational appeal messaging, emotional appeal messaging is better able to persuade consumers to curtail non-sustainable consumption behaviors. Furthermore, loss-framed messages are more effective than gain-framed ones. Message appeal and message framing have an interactive persuasive effect on reducing such consumer behaviors. (...) Loss-framed rational appeal messages are more persuasive at reducing non-sustainable consumption behaviors than gain-framed rational appeal messages, and gain-framed emotional appeal messages persuade consumers to reduce non-sustainable consumption behaviors more than loss-framed ones. Consumers’ psychological ownership moderates the persuasive effect of messaging. Among consumers with a high level of psychological ownership of shared goods, only gain-framed emotional appeal messaging is effective at reducing non-sustainable consumption behaviors, whereas among consumers with low psychological ownership, the persuasive effect of loss-framed rational appeal messaging is more effective than gain-framed emotional appeal messaging. This study extends the research on non-sustainable consumption behavior management in ABSs and provides important inspiration for the management of ABSs consumer behavior. (shrink)

Positive and negative feelings were central to the development of economics, especially in utility theory in classical economics. While neoclassical utility theory ignored feelings, behavioral economics more recently reintroduced feelings in utility theory. Beyond feelings, economic theorists use full-fledged specific emotions to explain behavior that otherwise could not be understood or they study emotions out of interest for the emotion itself. While some analyses display a strong overlap between psychological thinking and economic modelling, in most cases there is (...) still a large gap between economic and psychological approaches to emotion research. Ways how to reduce this gap are discussed. (shrink)

We present a theoretical model of health beliefs and behaviors that explicitly takes into account the emotional impact of possible bad news, ex-ante in the form of anxiety and ex-post in the form of disappointment. Our model makes it possible to explain a number of anomalies such as ’low’ testing rates, heterogeneous perceptions of risk levels, underestimation of health risk, ostriches and hypochondriacs, over-use and under-use of health services, patient preference for information when relatively certain of not being ill, (...) yet avoiding information when relatively certain of being ill, etc. Our model matches observed patterns both in health beliefs and health behaviors and irrational health beliefs and behaviors can be characterized as the optimal response under a given structure of emotions and preferences. (shrink)

According to contractualist theories in ethics, whether an action is wrong is determined by whether it could be justified to others on grounds no one could reasonably reject. Contractualists then think that reasonable rejectability of principles depends on the strength of the personal objections individuals can make to them. There is, however, a deep disagreement between contractualists concerning from which temporal perspective the relevant objections to different principles are to be made. Are they to be made on the basis of (...) the prospects the principles give to different individuals ex ante or on the basis of the outcomes of the principles ex post? Both answers have been found to be problematic. The ex ante views make irrelevant information about personal identity morally significant and lead to objectionable ex ante rules, whereas ex post views lead to counterintuitive results in the so-called different harm and social risk imposition cases. The aim of this article is to provide a new synthesis of these views that can avoid the problems of the previous alternatives. I call the proposal ‘risk-acknowledging’ ex post contractualism. The crux of the view is to take into account in the comparisons of different objections both the realized harms and the risks under which individuals have to live. (shrink)

The concept of ‘pareto superiority’ plays a central role in ethics, economics, and law. Pareto superiority is sometimes taken as a relation between outcomes, and sometimes as a relation between actions—even where the outcomes of the actions are uncertain. Whether one action is classed as (ex ante) pareto superior to another depends on the prospects under the actions for each person concerned. I argue that a person’s prospects (in this context) can depend on how that person is designated. Without (...) any constraints on acceptable designators, then, the concept of pareto superiority is ill defined and gives inconsistent results. I consider various ways of completing the definition and draw out some surprising implications. (shrink)

Prioritarianism is a variant of utilitarianism. It differs from utilitarianism in that benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are. On this view, there are two standard ways of handling risky prospects: Ex-Post Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off in final outcomes and then values prospects by the expectation of the sum total of those adjusted values, whereas Ex-Ante Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off on each individual's expectation and then values prospects by the sum (...) total of those adjusted expectations. A standard objection to Ex-Post Prioritarianism is that it violates Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. In this article, I argue that Ex-Ante Prioritarianism suffers from much the same problem: it violates a sequential version of Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes sequences of choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. (shrink)

Ex ante contractualism holds that in situations involving risk we ought to act in accordance with principles that license the action that satisfies the strongest individual claim, where those claims are a function of the expected value that a given policy gives each person ex ante. I here challenge ex ante contractualism on contractualist grounds. I argue that adopting ex ante contractualism would have far reaching implications that contractualists, or many nonconsequentialist in general, would find very (...) hard to accept. I conclude that to block these implications, contractualists should adopt an ex post approach to deal with decisions under risk. (shrink)

Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to an analogous (...) puzzle in quantified epistemic logic. We also show that even if the puzzle were to remain unsolved, its impact on welfare economics and ethics would be limited. (shrink)

This chapter discusses desire theory and how the temporal gap between desires and the states of affairs that satisfy them affects this theory. Satisfaction is not that important in desire theory because even if getting what we want fails to satisfy, we are better off for having got it. The rationale for rejecting hedonistic accounts of well-being in favor of desire theories is the intuition that states of affairs that are not “like” anything for us can harm and benefit us. (...) Sumner, however, suggests that even if we grant the desire theorist’s fundamental assumption that they can make a difference to our well-being, the prospective character of desire, which opens a temporal gap between desires and the states of affairs that satisfy them, undermines the account. (shrink)

Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to (...) an analogous puzzle in quantified epistemic logic. We also show that even if the puzzle were to remain unsolved, its impact on welfare economics and ethics would be limited. (shrink)

Frances Kamm distinguishes between changes or enhancements that are made before a child exists (ex ante changes) and those that are made once a child exists (ex post changes), and she argues that ex ante changes do not show disrespect or, as Michael Sandel would put it, lack of love, for a person, since the person does not yet exist. In this paper, I argue that it is important to distinguish between ex ante enhancements that are morally (...) neutral and those that are morally dubious, and that the latter ones are morally objectionable even if the persons do not yet exist. (shrink)

Process reliabilism is a theory about ex post justification, the justification of a doxastic attitude one has, such as belief. It says roughly that a justified belief is a belief formed by a reliable process. It is not a theory about ex ante justification, one’s justification for having a particular attitude toward a proposition, an attitude one might lack. But many reliabilists supplement their theory such that it explains ex ante justification in terms of reliable processes. In this (...) paper I argue that the main way reliabilists supplement their theory fails. In the absence of an alternative, reliabilism does not account for ex ante justification. (shrink)

Le Droit est aujourd'hui placé devant un impératif stratégique : tourner sa force vers le futur, pour faire face à des enjeux (numérique et climat) sur lesquels la loi et le contrat n'ont pas l'emprise requise, puisque trop locale ou trop peu systémique, tandis que la responsabilité ex post n'est pas adéquate face à l'irréparable. La responsabilité se saisit donc de l'avenir, le juge devenant le personnage central du monde sans qu'il l'ait voulu. Ce déplacement dans le temps peut continuer (...) à s'ancrer dans le passé, du fait d'engagements des États ou des entreprises. Mais cette responsabilité pour le futur engendrant une obligation non de réparer mais de faire peut venir plus directement encore du seul fait que l'entité visée est « en position » d'agir pour qu'autrui soit préservé. Preuves préconstituées, office ex ante du juge, devoir pour autrui mais aussi pouvoirs de l'entreprise et de l'État pour porter cette responsabilité ex ante, pilier du droit de la compliance, droit de l'avenir, sont les nouvelles règles qui se mettent en place. (shrink)

This paper is part of an attempt to clarify the relationship between explanatory reasons and justificatory reasons for actions of various kinds. It draws on a distinction between two notions of rationalization, viz., ex ante and ex post rationalization, to recast the akratic case on the one hand and to explicate an adequate sense in which an explanatory but non-justificatory reason for an action rationalizes the latter on the other hand. The explication is helped by analysis of a hypothetical (...) example, and the name "quasi-rational" is legitimated for the type of actions this example represents. Last, but not least, the paper demonstrates that an implication of the argument is the falsity of one well-known principle in Davidson's action theory, i.e., the principle claiming that the (primary) reason for an action is also its cause. (shrink)

Kuyumcuoglu argues that defenders of sweatshop regulations should reject consequentialism and accept an ex ante interpretation of contractualism instead. In this Commentary I show that Kuyumcuoglu’s argument doesn’t succeed. Defenders of sweatshops shouldn’t become ex ante contractualists because its advantages on this issue are more apparent than real.

The ex ante Pareto principle has an intuitive pull, and it has been a principle of central importance since Harsanyi’s defence of utilitarianism. The principle has been used to criticize and refine a range of positions in welfare economics, including egalitarianism and prioritarianism. But this principle faces a serious problem. I have argued elsewhere :303-323 2017) that the concept of ex ante Pareto superiority is not well defined, because its application in a choice situation concerning a fixed population (...) can depend on how the members of that population are designated. I show in this paper that in almost all cases of policy choice, there will be numerous sets of rival designators for the same fixed population. I explore two ways that we might complete the definition of ex ante Pareto superiority. I call these the ‘supervaluationist’ reading and the ‘subvaluationist’ reading. I reject the subvaluationist reading as uncharitable, and argue that the supervaluationist reading is the most promising interpretation of the ex ante Pareto principle. I end by exploring some of the implications of this principle for prioritarianism and egalitarianism. (shrink)

When distributing an indivisible harm or benefit between multiple individuals, all of whom have an equal claim to avoid the harm or receive the benefit, it is commonly thought that one should hold a lottery in order to give each claimant an equal chance of winning. Moreover, it is often said that, by holding a lottery, one makes the resultant outcome inequality between those who receive the harm or benefit and those who do not less unfair than it would otherwise (...) have been. The stated view – the ‘egalitarian mixed view’ – claims that the unfairness of a brute luck ex post distribution is a function of both the degree of inequality in the ex post distribution itself, and the degree of inequality in the ex ante distribution of chances from which it is derived. Versions of the view have been prominently endorsed by a number of authors, including Arneson, Broome, Diamond, Lang, Otsuka, Parfit, and Temkin. The appeal of the view is linked to its apparent promise to accommodate intuitions that have been thought to threaten views which link the fairness of an outcome either solely to the ex ante distribution or solely to the ex post distribution. I argue, to the contrary, that the egalitarian mixed view is mistaken. In particular, I argue that the distinction at the heart of the view – that between outcomes and changes to probabilities – is morally arbitrary at best and incoherent at worst. I consider possible responses to the charge and find them wanting. I note that the failure of the egalitarian mixed view has significant consequences for policy, including most importantly for how we should interpret the goal of fair equality of opportunity. (shrink)

It is well known that there is a conflict between three intuitive principles for the evaluation of risky prospects in distributional contexts, Ex-Post Egalitarianism, Ex-Ante Pareto and Dominance. In this paper, I return to Peter Diamond’s suggestion that we reject Dominance as a principle of rationality in distributional contexts and present a new argument in support of this position. The argument is based on an observation regarding the right way for a distributor to weigh reasons for actions. In some (...) cases, I argue, reasons for action that are grounded in the interests of one of the patients ought to be disregarded by the distributor. These cases share the following property: it is in the patient’s overall interest that the distributor disregards them. I show that Dominance does not permit distributors to disregard such reasons and use this observation to argue against the claim that Dominance is a principle of rationality in distributional contexts. (shrink)

Cushman characterizes rationalization as the inverse of rational reasoning, but this distinction is psychologically questionable. Coherence-based reasoning highlights a subtler form of bidirectionality: By distorting task attributes to make one course of action appear superior to its rivals, a patina of rationality is bestowed on the choice. This mechanism drives choice and action, rather than just following in their wake.

First, Mahtani argues that both in the game The Mug and in the Sleeping Beauty we should not defer to a trusted person under a particular designation if they do not self-identify under this designation. This invites a more complex Reflection Principle. I respond that there are more parsimonious ways to avoid the challenges posed to the Reflection Principle. Second, Mahtani argues that preferences create a hyperintensional context, which poses a challenge to the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle that can be (...) averted by supervaluation. I respond that such an appeal to supervaluation would block randomization as a fair allocation device. (shrink)

최근 일군의 철학자들은 스캔런의 계약주의가 이른바 사후적인 도덕이론이 아니라 사전적인 것으로 해석되어야 한다고 주장한다. 사전적 계약주의는 어떤 원칙이 개인에게 부과하는 이득이나 해악의 기대값의 관점에서 해당 원칙을 정당화하는 구조를 지닌다. 이런 최근의 경향은, 사후적이 아닌 사전적 계약주의가 위태롭게 하는 행위의 허용 가능성에 대해 최선의 설명을 제공해줄 수 있다는 인식에서 비롯되었다. 본고의 주된 목표는 사전적 계약주의를 옹호하는 기존 시도들의 한계를 극복할 수 있는 새로운 관점을 제시하는 것이다. 필자는 기존 연구에서 큰 관심을 받지 못한 예방조치라는 개념을 강조하며 그것이 사전적 계약주의의 체계 내에 정합적으로 (...) 안착될 수 있음을 보인다. 궁극적으로 필자는 예방조치라는 개념 없이는 위태롭게 하는 행위의 허용 가능성을 제대로 설명할 수 없다고 주장한다. (shrink)

Policy-makers must sometimes choose between an alternative which has somewhat lower expected value for each person, but which will substantially improve the outcomes of the worst off, or an alternative which has somewhat higher expected value for each person, but which will leave those who end up worst off substantially less well off. The popular ex ante Pareto principle requires the choice of the alternative with higher expected utility for each. We argue that ex ante Pareto ought to (...) be rejected because it conflicts with the requirement that, when possible, one ought to decide as one would with full information. We apply our argument in an analysis of US policy on screening for breast cancer. -/- . (shrink)

El giro afectivo ingresó como matriz de discusión conceptual durante el pasaje entre los siglos XX y XXI y, entre muchos otros debates, argumentó a favor de la productividad de la distinción entre afecto y emoción. El objetivo de este trabajo es señalar el tipo de intervención que sobre la cuestión desarrolló la filosofía feminista antes de la irrupción de esta tradición y, en segundo lugar, establecer qué contenido se le puede dar en este marco a la idea de agencia. (...) El nodo del argumento obliga a recorrer una serie de intervenciones fundamentales de la filósofa feminista Iris Marion Young quien, de acuerdo con mi evaluación, señaló algunos de los efectos políticos problemáticos de ciertos argumentos que, hasta el día de hoy, conforman el corazón del giro afectivo en su versión más ortodoxa. (shrink)

In this note, I provide an axiomatic characterization of the relative utilitarian bargaining solution to Nash bargaining problems. The solution is obtained when Nash’s independence of irrelevant alternatives axiom is replaced by the weak linearity axiom, while retaining the other three axioms. RU maximizes the sum of proportional gains, or, equivalently, minimizes the sum of proportional losses. RU is scale invariant and compared to the Nash and Kalai and Smorodinsky solutions, it is ex ante efficient when the bargaining problem (...) is considered as a lottery of future bargaining problems. (shrink)

This paper considers the tension between timelessness and timeboundedness in legal interpretation, examining parallels between sacred texts and secular law. It is argued that familiar dualities such as those between statute and judge-made law, law and equity, written and spoken discourse, dictionary meaning versus intended or contextual meaning, can be examined using this timeless/timebounded framework. Two landmark English cases, DPP v Shaw (1961) and R v R (1991) are analyzed as illustrating contrasting aspects of the socio-legal politics of “reasoning backwards”. (...) The related temporal distinction between ex ante and ex post points of view is examined both within legal theory and as a key issue for linguistic and semiotic systems. The argument is made that this distinction is the key to a wide range of methodological and theoretical problems in relating linguistics and semiotics to law. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how instructors of professionalism and ethics training programs can integrate a professional decision-making tool in training curricula. This tool can help trainees understand how to apply professional decision-making strategies to address the threats posed by a variety of psychological and environmental factors when they are faced with complex professional and ethical situations. We begin by highlighting key decision-making frameworks and discussing factors that may undermine the use of professional decision-making strategies. Then, drawing upon findings from past research, (...) we present the “SMART” professional decision-making framework: seeking help, managing emotions, anticipating consequences, recognizing rules and context, and testing assumptions and motives. Next, we present a vignette that poses a complex ethical and professional challenge and illustrate how each professional decision-making strategy could or should be used by characters in the case. To conclude, we review a series of educational practices and pedagogical tools intended to help trainers facilitate trainee learning, retention, and application of “SMART” decision-making strategies. (shrink)

Unreasonable expectations about the nature and character of scientific knowledge support the widespread political assumption that predictive scientific assessments are a necessary precursor to environmental decision making. All too often, the practical outcome of this assumption is that scientific uncertainty becomes a ready-made dodge for what is in reality just a difficult political decision. Interdisciplinary assessments necessary to address complex environmental policy issues invariably result in findings that are inherently contestable, especially when applied in the unrestrained realm of partisan politics. (...) In this article, the authors argue that predictive scientific assessments are inherently limited in the extent to which they can guide policy development and that rigorous scientific assessments can be much more valuable in the role of ex post policy evaluation than they can in the context of ex ante policy formulation. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose and defend a distinct and novel approach to compensation for risk impositions. I call it the Risk-Pooling System of compensation. This system suggests that when X performs an action that imposes a risk of harm to Y, then X is liable to Y, and is therefore obliged to make an ex ante compensation that is roughly equivalent to the expected cost of potential harm to a social- risk pool. If and when Y suffers harm (...) as a result of the risk imposed by X, they then receive an ex post compensation roughly equivalent to the cost of actual harm suffered. This system of compensation creates a social buffer between the risk imposer – the one who has the duty to pay compensation into the pool – and the victim – the one who has the right to receive compensation from the social pool. I contend that the Risk-Pooling System is an improvement over its alternatives due to its capacity to produce the best social utilities, particularly, in terms of reducing information costs, obtaining optimal deterrence in the society and creating incentives for people to be engaged in social activities. (shrink)

How people react emotionally to the positive or negative events that they experience in their lives depends in part on whether particular outcomes are perceived to be deserved or undeserved. For ex...

The results of the European elections 2014 in Spain were characterized by the outstanding rise of a new party, Podemos, which obtained five seats in the European Parliament, despite being founded few months before the elections. The present study analyzes both the content and the presence of emotions in Podemos’ discourse on Facebook during the European electoral campaign. In particular, the affective content of both the party’s discourse and the comments of its followers will be analyzed through a pragmatic (...) linguistic approach applied to a corpus of 163 posts and 215 followers’ comments. Results show an insistence on positive emotions in the party’s discourse and a prevalence of negative emotions in the comments of the citizens.Los resultados en España de las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo de 2014 se caracterizaron por el surgimiento de un nuevo partido, Podemos, que, a pesar de haber sido fundado pocos meses antes de las elecciones, obtuvo cinco escaños en el Parlamento Europeo. En este trabajo analizamos el contenido y la presencia de emociones en el discurso de Podemos en Facebook durante la campaña electoral europea. Concretamente, se analiza el contenido afectivo del discurso del partido y de los comentarios de sus seguidores mediante una aproximación lingüística pragmática aplicada a 163 posts y 215 comentarios. Los resultados muestran una insistencia en emociones positivas por parte del partido y una prevalencia de emociones negativas en los comentarios de los internautas. (shrink)

We investigate the conflict between the ex ante and ex post criteria of social welfare in a new framework of individual and social decisions, which distinguishes between two sources of uncertainty, here interpreted as an objective and a subjective source respectively. This framework makes it possible to endow the individuals and society not only with ex ante and ex post preferences, as is usually done, but also with interim preferences of two kinds, and correspondingly, to introduce interim forms (...) of the Pareto principle. After characterizing the ex ante and ex post criteria, we present a first solution to their conflict that extends the former as much possible in the direction of the latter. Then, we present a second solution, which goes in the opposite direction, and is also maximally assertive. Both solutions translate the assumed Pareto conditions into weighted additive utility representations, and both attribute to the individuals common probability values on the objective source of uncertainty, and different probability values on the subjective source. We discuss these solutions in terms of two conceptual arguments, i.e., the by now classic spurious unanimity argument and a novel informational argument labelled complementary ignorance. The paper complies with the standard economic methodology of basing probability and utility representations on preference axioms, but for the sake of completeness, also considers a construal of objective uncertainty based on the assumption of an exogeneously given probability measure. JEL classification: D70; D81. (shrink)

After the cessation of conflict the majority of those involved in violations of international law will not be held criminally accountable. Rather, it is frequently the case that the bulk of perpetrators receive amnesty. Often, consequentialist considerations weigh heavily on the decision to grant amnesty. For instance, amnesties may be offered in order to generate aggregate security benefits in volatile post-conflict settings. My contention is that states cannot morally justify amnesties by appealing solely to the aggregate benefits they are expected (...) to deliver. The moral objection concerns the distribution of associated costs, where such costs include the risk of re-offense that amnesty generates. Importantly, these costs may be unevenly imposed onto the society. This means that certain citizens will expect to bear individual losses greater than any gains the amnesty can deliver to them. Those placed at a net-disadvantage can object that amnesties are morally unjustifiable: they impose unreasonable burdens on them in order to secure benefits for others. However, as amnesties are often vital to achieve peace there remain strong pragmatic reasons to favour limited prosecutions. Given these concerns it is necessary to justify the differential imposition of cost associated with amnesties. I argue that ex ante contractualism, as a theory of moral justification, is well-suited to this task. According to this framework amnesties are justified only if no individual could reasonably reject the associated burdens. By developing a non-aggregative justification of amnesty this account offers a novel approach to the design and implementation of post-conflict prosecutorial strategies. (shrink)

Using a subliminal priming lexical decision task, the present research investigated whether individuals who show negative implicit evaluations of an ex-partner immediately after a break-up show superior post-break-up emotional adjustment. As expected, individuals whose reaction times indicated negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partner showed reduced depressive affect immediately after the break-up. Individuals who did not initiate their break-up demonstrated less negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partners as well as more depressive affect. Finally, increased negative implicit evaluations of ex-partners over a (...) one-month period were associated with corresponding improvements in adjustment. The findings demonstrate a critical role for implicit evaluations in post-break-up adjustment. (shrink)

The results of a previous study (Craig & Lipp, 2018) into the effects of multiple social category cues (face race and face sex) on facial emotion recognition indicate that face sex dominates face race, and moreover, participant sex differences contribute little to the observed effects. Here, I modelled the same dataset (https://osf.io/rsmxb/) using the ex-Gaussian, a distribution that is 1) well suited to RT data and 2) separates slow from relatively fast influences. Corroborating recent results (Tipples, 2022) current results show (...) larger effects of face sex (for the faces of White individuals) for female participants. Further novel interaction effects were revealed. For example, results support a different time course for the influence of face sex on expression for the faces of Black compared to White individuals. (shrink)

Suppose n Bayesian agents need to make a decision as a group. The groupas a whole is also supposed to be a Bayesian agent whose probabilities andutilities are derived or aggregated in reasonable ways from the probabilitiesand utilities of the group members. The aggregation could beex ante, i.e., interms of expected utilities, or it could be ex post, i.e., in terms of utilitiesonly, or in terms of utilities and probabilities separately. This study exploresthe ex post approach. Using the Bolker/Jeffrey (...) framework, we show thatex post aggregation is subject to an instability phenomenon. That is, it mayhappen that the group preference between actions ``flips back and forth'''' dependingon the level of detail in which the decision problem is described. Structurally verysimilar phenomena also occur elsewhere in social choice theory, in statistics (Simpson''sParadox), and in voting theory (Ostrogorski''s Paradox). (shrink)

Linda Morrison brings the voices and issues of a little-known, complex social movement to the attention of sociologists, mental health professionals, and the general public. The members of this social movement work to gain voice for their own experience, to raise consciousness of injustice and inequality, to expose the darker side of psychiatry, and to promote alternatives for people in emotional distress. Talking Back to Psychiatry explores the movement's history, its complex membership, its strategies and goals, and the varied response (...) it has received from psychiatry, policy makers, and the public at large. (shrink)

The experience of emotion is a fundamental part of human consciousness. Think, for example, of how different our conscious lives would be without such experiences as joy, anger, fear, disgust, pity, anxiety, and embarrassment. It is uncontroversial that these experiences typically have an intentional content. Anger, for example, is normally directed at someone or something. One may feel angry at one=s stock broker for provid- ing bad advice or angry with the cleaning lady for dropping the vase. But it is (...) not un- controversial that emotional experiences are always intentional. John Searle, for exam- ple, remarks, AMany conscious states are not Intentional, e.g., a sudden sense of elation...@. Moreover, many animals experience emotions and it is natural to sup- pose that such emotions lack the sophistication of beliefs or thoughts. When a dog ex- periences delight in seeing its master after an absence of several days, the suggestion that at least part of the dog=s experience of delight is a belief that its master has returned home seems to import into the experience something that at best is associ- ated with it and perhaps is not really a state to which the dog is subject at all. And even in the case of human beings, emotional experience often does not seem to involve thought. Consider the experience of disgust, to take one obvious example.1 Nor is a sali- ent belief required. One may have a strong fear of spiders and yet not believe that spi- ders typically pose any risk to humans. But if emotional experiences need not involve beliefs or thoughts, then just how are they intentional?2. (shrink)

The Pareto principle states that if the members of society express the same preference judgment between two options, this judgment is compelling for society. A building block of normative economics and social choice theory, and often borrowed by contemporary political philosophy, the principle has rarely been subjected to philosophical criticism. The paper objects to it on the ground that it indifferently applies to those cases in which the individuals agree on both their expressed preferences and their reasons for entertaining them, (...) and those cases in which they agree on their expressed preferences, while differing on their reasons. The latter are cases of "spurious unanimity", and it is normatively inappropriate, or so the paper argues, to defend unanimity preservation at the social level for them, so the Pareto principle is formulated much too broadly. The objection seems especially powerful when the principle is applied in an ex ante context of uncertainty, in which individuals can disagree on both their probabilities and utilities, and nonetheless agree on their preferences over prospects. (shrink)

Emotions have traditionally been viewed as intrapersonal phenomena. Over the past decades, theory and research have shifted toward a more social perspective that emphasizes the role of emotional ex...

How cautious should regulators be? A standard answer is consequentialist: regulators should be just cautious enough to maximize expected social value. This paper charts the prospects of a nonconsequentialist - and more precautionary - alternative. More specifically, it argues that a contractualism focused on ex ante consent can motivate the following regulatory criterion: regulators should permit a socially beneficial risky activity only if no one can be expected to be made worse off by it. Broadly speaking, there are two (...) strategies regulators can use to help risky activities satisfy this criterion: regulators can mandate strict safety standards that protect those who would otherwise stand to lose, and they can require that some of the benefits of the activity be redirected to them. In developing these themes, the paper aims to provide a theoretical grounding for those who oppose using risk-cost-benefit analysis as the primary regulatory standard, and in particular, for advocates of the precautionary principle. (shrink)

While ordinary decision theory focuses on empirical uncertainty, real decision-makers also face normative uncertainty: uncertainty about value itself. From a purely formal perspective, normative uncertainty is comparable to (Harsanyian or Rawlsian) identity uncertainty in the 'original position', where one's future values are unknown. A comprehensive decision theory must address twofold uncertainty -- normative and empirical. We present a simple model of twofold uncertainty, and show that the most popular decision principle -- maximising expected value (`Expectationalism') -- has different formulations, namely (...) Ex-Ante Expectationalism, Ex-Post Expectationalism, and hybrid theories. These alternative theories recommend different decisions, reasoning modes, and attitudes to risk. But they converge under an interesting (necessary and sufficient) condition. (shrink)