_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

With the considerable attention given to UNESCO's Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, the time has come to take another look at the concept of dignity, on which this document is morally founded. The term “dignity” now appears in many national constitutions and international bioethical statements. It has also become popular among Continental European ethicists, many of whom wish to challenge the particularly American and overtly individualistic principles of “autonomy,” “justice,” “beneficence,” and “nonmaleficence.” a.

Conceptual engineering, motivated one natural way, involves the search for new concepts. But to what extent does conceptual engineering as practiced involve such conceptual innovation, and to what extent can it do so? In this paper, I first argue that conceptual engineering as practiced surprisingly does not appear to involve conceptual innovation, and then I discuss problems regarding the extent to which it can involve conceptual innovation.

The role that trust plays in blockchain-based systems is understood and portrayed in various manners. The blockchain technology is said to enable and establish trust as well as to redirect it, to substitute for it, and to make it obsolete. Furthermore, there is disagreement on whom or what users have to trust when using the blockchain technology: code, math, algorithms, and machines, or still human actors. This paper hypothesizes that the divergences of the depictions largely rest on implicitly adhering to (...) different accounts of trust. Thus, the goal of this paper is to outline how the current lack of a shared understanding of the term “trust” leads to diverging interpretations of the blockchain technology’s core features. Furthermore, it shows how this lack of common understanding obstructs scholars from referring to one another meaningfully in the discourse on blockchain technology. To do so, this paper outlines the most prominent depictions of the setup of relevant trust relationships within blockchain-based systems and traces their roots to different underlying assumptions on the nature of trust. (shrink)

Contents: Matti SINTONEN: From the Science of Logic to the Logic of Science. I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES. Zev BECHLER: Hintikka on Plenitude in Aristotle. Marja-Liisa KAKKURI-KNUUTTILA: What Can the Sciences of Man Learn from Aristotle? Martin KUSCH: Theories of Questions in German-Speaking Philosophy Around the Turn of the Century. Nils-Eric SAHLIN: 'HE IS NO GOOD FOR MY WORK': On the Philosophical Relations between Ramsey and Wittgenstein. II: FORMAL TOOLS: INDUCTION, OBSERVATION AND IDENTIFIABILITY. Theo A.F. KUIPERS: The Carnap-Hintikka Programme in Inductive (...) Logic. Isaac LEVI: Caution and Nonmonotonic Inference. Ilkka NIINILUOTO: Inductive Logic, Atomism, and Observational Error. Arto MUTANEN: Theory of Identifiability. III: QUESTIONS IN INQUIRY: THE INTERROGATIVE MODEL. Sylvain BROMBERGER: Natural Kinds and Questions. Scott A. KLEINER: The Structure of Inquiry in Developmental Biology. Andrzej WISNIEWSKI: Some Foundational Concepts of Erotetic Semantics. Jan WOLE??N??SKI: Science and Games. IV: GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE: EXPLANATION AND DISCOVERY. Matti SINTONEN: Explanation: The Fifth Decade. Erik WEBER: Scientific Explanation and the Interrogative Model of Inquiry. George GEBHARD: Scientific Discovery, Induction, and the Multi-Level Character of Scientific Inquiry. Mika KIIKERI: On the Logical Structure of Learning Models. V: JAAKKO HINTIKKA: REPLIES. VI: ABSTRACTS. (shrink)

Mark Johnston and Eric Olson have both pressed what Johnston has dubbed the personite problem. Personites, if they exist, are person-like entities whose lives extend over a continuous proper part of a person’s life. They are so person-like that they seem to have moral status if persons do. But this threatens to wreak havoc with ordinary moral thinking. For example, simple decisions to suffer some short-term hardship for long-term benefits become problematic. And ordinary punishment is always also punishment of the (...) innocent, since it punishes personites that didn’t exist when the crime was committed. An initially attractive way around the personite problem may be to simply deny that personites exist. But as I discuss in this talk, relating to contemporary discussions in metaontology, this response for principled reasons doesn’t work. The problems I discuss illustrate the significance of metaontological considerations for issues in ethics and metaethics, and generalize widely beyond the personite problem. (shrink)

(1) Abstract objects. The nominalist (as the label is used today) denies that there exist abstract objects. The platonist holds that there are abstract objects. One example is numbers. The nominalist denies that there are numbers; the platonist typically affirms it.

:Justice can be approached from many angles in ethical and political debates, including those involving healthcare, biomedical research, and well-being. The main doctrines of justice are liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, luck egalitarianism, socialism, utilitarianism, capability approach, communitarianism, and care ethics. These can be further elaborated in the light of traditional moral and social theories, values, ideals, and interests, and there are distinct dimensions of justice that are captured better by some tactics than by others. In this article, questions surrounding these matters (...) are approached with the hermeneutic idea of a distinction between “American” and “European” ways of thinking. (shrink)

According to a certain pluralist view in philosophy of mathematics, there are as many mathematical objects as there can coherently be. Recently, Justin Clarke-Doane has explored what consequences the analogous view on normative properties would have. What if there is a normative pluriverse? Here I address this same question. The challenge is best seen as a challenge to an important form of normative realism. I criticize the way Clarke-Doane presents the challenge. An improved challenge is presented, and the role of (...) pluralism in this challenge is assessed. (shrink)

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies (...) concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the ‘but for’ rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Abortions are legally permitted in most Western societies if there is a reasonable expectation that the child, if born, would be physically or mentally disabled. Even late-term abortions, which would not be allowed in the case of healthy fetuses, are accepted on the basis of foreseen disability.

The surprise minimization principle has been applied to explain various cognitive processes in humans. Originally describing perceptual and active inference, the framework has been applied to different types of decision making including long-term policies, utility maximization and exploration. This analysis extends the application of surprise minimization to a multi-agent setup and shows how it can explain the emergence of social rules and cooperation. We further show that in social decision-making and political policy design, surprise minimization is superior in many aspects (...) to the classical approach of maximizing utility. Surprise minimization shows directly what value freedom of choice can have for social agents and why, depending on the context, they enter into cooperation, agree on social rules, or do nothing of the kind. (shrink)

My focus here will be Rudolf Carnap’s views on ontology, as these are presented in the seminal “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” (1950). I will first describe how I think Carnap’s distinction between external and internal questions is best understood. Then I will turn to broader issues regarding Carnap’s views on ontology. With certain reservations, I will ascribe to Carnap an ontological pluralist position roughly similar to the positions of Eli Hirsch and the later Hilary Putnam. Then I turn to some (...) interrelated arguments against the pluralist view. The arguments are not demonstrative. Some possible escape routes for the pluralist are outlined. But I think the arguments constitute a formidable challenge. There should be serious doubt as to whether the pluralist view, as it emerges after discussion of these arguments, will be worth defending. Moreover, there is an alternative ontological view which equally well subserves the motivations underlying ontological pluralism. (shrink)

The paper explores two ways in which the logic of questions might aid in the understanding of explanations. First, the "logic" of question-answer sequences imposes constraints on what answers are acceptable for an inquirer. Secondly, there are field- specific type-requirements built into questions. There is always more to a question than meets the potential answerer's ear. It is argued that, since there are nonepistemic presuppositions of why-questions, there are no interesting necessary and sufficient conditions for all explanations. Explanations are a (...) family of concepts tied together by the thin thread of the logic of question-answer sequences. (shrink)

In part of The Fragmentation of Being, Kris McDaniel discusses the possibility that we—persons—are not fully real, and the normative upshot of this. The broader metaphysical context is a view on which different things have different degrees of being and what is discussed is the possibility that persons do not have the maximal degree of being. McDaniel thinks that this has a problematic normative upshot: we would not matter. I do not agree. Here I go through some reasons for thinking (...) that the possible metaphysical view discussed does not have the normative upshot that McDaniel thinks it has. (shrink)

Should we make people healthier, smarter, and longer-lived if genetic and medical advances enable us to do so? Matti Häyry asks this question in the context of genetic testing and selection, cloning and stem cell research, gene therapies and enhancements. The ethical questions explored include parental responsibility, the use of people as means, the role of hope and fear in risk assessment, and the dignity and meaning of life. Taking as a starting point the arguments presented by Jonathan Glover, (...) John Harris, Ronald M. Green, Jürgen Habermas, Michael J. Sandel, and Leon R. Kass, who defend a particular normative view as the only rational or moral answer, Matti Häyry argues that many coherent rationalities and moralities exist in the field, and that to claim otherwise is mistaken"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Antinatalism assigns reproduction a negative value. There should be fewer or no births. Those who say that there should be fewer births have been called conditional antinatalists. A better name for their view would be selective pronatalism. Those who say that there should be no births face two challenges. They must define the scope of their no-birth policy. Does it apply only to human or sentient beings or can it also be extended to all organic life, perhaps even to machine (...) consciousness? And whatever the scope, they have to justify the eventual extinction of humankind or other life forms, an inevitable consequence of unconditional antinatalism. Different axiologies and moral theories produce different responses to these challenges. It is argued that a two-value conflict-sensitive negative utilitarianism would produce a kind and reasonable justification for ending at least human and factory-animal reproduction. The conclusion is purely moral and supports only voluntary extinction for humankind. (shrink)

When humanity has either suppressed coronavirus disease 2019 or learned to come to terms with its continued existence, governments and corporations probably return to their prepandemic stances. Solutions to the world’s problems are sought from technology and business innovations, not from considerations of equality and well-being for all. This is in stark contrast with the pandemic-time situation. Many governments, at least initially, listened to the recommendations of expert advisers, most notably public health authorities, who proceeded from considerations of equality and (...) common good. I suggest that we should continue on this path when the immediate threat of the disease is over. Other crises are already ongoing—poverty, conflicts, climate change, financial bubbles, and so on—and it would be good to use expert knowledge rather than interests and ideologies in dealing with them. To assist in this, I outline the characteristics of a new kind of counsellor,impartial adviser, who is normatively motivated by a sense ofcopathyand who takes into account all views, nice and not-so-nice alike. I illustrate the nature and ideological orientation of copathic impartial advisers by placing them on a map of justice and examining their relationships with the main political moralities of our time. (shrink)

Numerous philosophical problems, otherwise quite different in character, are of the following form. Certain claims which seem not only obviously true, but even constitutive of the meanings of the expressions employed, can be shown to lead to absurdity when taken together. All such problems can justly be called paradoxes. The paradoxes I examine are the liar paradox, the sorites paradox, and the personal identity paradox posed by the fission problem. ;I argue that in these cases, the claims that jointly lead (...) to absurdity really are constitutive of the meanings of the expressions employed, in the following ways. First, semantic competence with the expressions involves being disposed to accept these claims. Second, the claims are reference-determining, in that the semantic values of the expressions employed are constrained by the condition that these claims should come out true, or as nearly true as possible. If a claim or principle is constitutive of meaning in both of these ways, I call it meaning-constitutive. When the meaning-constitutive principles for some expressions of a language are inconsistent, I call the language inconsistent. This is a stipulative definition; but it accords well with what other theorists who have talked about languages being inconsistent, for example Alfred Tarski, have had in mind. ;In chapters one and two, I argue that our language is inconsistent. In chapter three, I relate my theses to Frank Jackson's and David Lewis's views on reference-determination. ;Another problem posed by the liar paradox concerns important theses in the philosophy of language. The liar reasoning shows that under certain conditions, a natural language cannot contain a predicate satisfying the T-schema. But many theses in the philosophy of language presuppose that truth satisfies the T-schema. In chapter four I attempt to resolve this conflict. (shrink)

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his bookThe Future of Human Nature.

Neo-Fregeanism in the philosophy of mathematics consists of two main parts: the logicist thesis, that mathematics (or at least branches thereof, like arithmetic) all but reduce to logic, and the platonist thesis, that there are abstract, mathematical objects. I will here focus on the ontological thesis, platonism. Neo-Fregeanism has been widely discussed in recent years. Mostly the discussion has focused on issues specific to mathematics. I will here single out for special attention the view on ontology which underlies the neo-Fregeans’ (...) claims about mathematical objects, and discuss this view in a broader setting. (shrink)

My theme here will be vagueness. But first recall Quine’s arguments for the indeterminacy of translation and the inscrutability of reference. (I will presume these arguments to be familiar.) If Quine is right, then there are radically different acceptable assignments of semantic values to the expressions of any language: different assignments of semantic values that for all that is determined by whatever it is that determines semantic value are all acceptable, and all equally good. Quine even argued that the indeterminacy (...) is so radical that some sentences are true under some acceptable assignments but false under others.1 Still, Quine does not allow intermediate truth-values or truthvalue gaps. (As I will put it, avoiding the disjunctive formulation: does not allow that there are sentences which are neuter.) Quine holds on to classical logic and bivalence and requires each acceptable assignment to be classical and bivalent.2. (shrink)

Many theorists hold that there is, among value concepts, a fundamental distinction between thin ones and thick ones. Among thin ones are concepts like good and right. Among concepts that have been regarded as thick are discretion, caution, enterprise, industry, assiduity, frugality, economy, good sense, prudence, discernment, treachery, promise, brutality, courage, coward, lie, gratitude, lewd, perverted, rude, glorious, graceful, exploited, and, of course, many others. Roughly speaking, thick concepts are value concepts with significant descriptive content. I will discuss a number (...) of problems having to do with how best to understand the notion of a thick concept. Thick concepts have been widely discussed in the .. (shrink)

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the (...) life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired. (shrink)

I shall here discuss some matters related to the so-called radical indeterminacy or inscrutability arguments due to, e.g., Willard v. O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, John Wallace and Donald Davidson.1 These are arguments that, on the face of it, demonstrate that there is radical indeterminacy in what the expressions in a theory refer to and in what the ontology of the theory is. I will use “inscrutability argument” as a general label for these arguments. My main topic – after I have (...) dealt with some issues that in the context are mere preliminaries – will be what the consequences of inscrutability for ontology might be. (The label ‘inscrutability’ is not ideal, as it suggests that the problem raised is primarily epistemic. But it is common to use the label in the context of Quine’s arguments. And it has the advantage over the alternative suggestion “indeterminacy” that it signals that we are here dealing with a special kind of indeterminacy, not only more widespread but also in principle irremediable.). (shrink)