Choice Group

Abstract: TBA

This event will take place online via Zoom. Everyone is welcome to join using a computer with access to the internet and Zoom. To take part just follow these instructions: Download Zoom Join the event using this link: https://uci.zoom.us/j/98439516195?pwd=cjNpei9VdWRxeXFsOE5UL0JzNWMwUT09 Please note that these events are routinely recorded, with the edited footage being made publicly available on our website and YouTube channel. We…

Abstract: TBA

Abstract: TBA

Abstract: TBA

I argue that extant, precise analyses of the two-envelopes problem are not fully satisfactory. Although it is true that concerns about conditionally convergent series block the argument from conditional expected value to unconditional expected value, this is only a partial resolution. I think the standard analysis (John Norton, Arntzenius and McCarthy, David Chalmers) leaves the version of the problem where a prize is revealed unresolved. There are other intuitive features of the case that no precise probability analysis can correctly capture. I also discuss Ned Markosian’s “simple solution”; while not correct, I think his argument contains a compelling insight to the effect that we should really want an analysis on which the agent is required to be determinately indifferent about switching (in the versions of the problem I discuss). I provide two new solutions to the problem which model the agent’s beliefs with imprecise probabilities. The first is very simple, evidentially well-motivated, and captures more of the intuitive judgments about the case than the standard line. However, it doesn’t achieve the desideratum of indifference about switching; so, I provide a second solution which does. It is very slightly less simple than the first, and I’m not yet quite sure what the most compelling evidential justification is.

Abstract: Few philosophical positions are as unpopular as radical subjective Bayesianism. In this paper, I seek, if not to rehabilitate subjectivism, at least to show its critic what is attractive about the position. I argue that what is at stake in the subjectivism/anti- subjectivism debate is not, as is commonly thought, which norms of rationality are true, but rather, the conception of rationality that we adopt: there is an alternative approach to the widespread telic approach to rationality, which I call the poric approach, on which subjectivism is an attractive position. I end by considering the prospects for escaping subjectivism, and I suggest that they are bleak.

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 one of the polarising agents. However, polarisation is increasingly recognised as a potentially rational phenomenon that can result from: different evidence, different levels of trust, different priors, and more. In the extreme, two perfect Bayesian agents can receive the same increasing and infinite stream of non-misleading evidence and yet polarise. We argue that this raises a sceptical puzzle for Bayesians, since it casts into doubt not only our confidence across the board, but the truth conduciveness of Conditionalization itself. In short: when two agents polarise with respect to a single proposition, one must move away from the truth, even if both are perfectly rational and confident in their assessment of the evidence. So if you are one such agent, you cannot tell ‘from the inside’ whether you are in the good case—converging on the truth—or the bad case—converging on the false. Moreover, now that you know that rational polarisation is possible, you possess higher-order evidence that your reasoning process may be epistemically faulty, even in the absence of another agent with polarised views. Whether you are in the good or bad case turns on facts about your priors that we may reasonably describe as a matter of luck. This should induce sceptical doubt.

There has been recent interest in the phenomenon of 'awareness growth' - where an agent starts off unaware of a proposition and so assigns it no credence, and then becomes aware of it and assigns it a credence, redistributing credences in other propositions accordingly. This phenomenon creates a problem for Bayesian epistemologists who standardly claim that a rational agent's credences change only by conditionalization. I show that we can handle these cases if we adopt a contextualist account of credences. I describe this contextualist account of credences, and show how cases of apparent awareness growth can be understood in light of this account. I argue that this approach dissolves a number of problems that philosophers working on awareness growth have faced.

The philosophical literature on consequentialism regularly distinguishes between “person-affecting” and “impersonal” moral justifications or accounts. The “person-affecting”/”impersonal” distinction can be interpreted in various ways. I understand it as follows. A person-affecting justificatory framework sees individuals’ well-being gains and losses—well-being effects on persons—as the fundamental moral considerations that underlie the moral goodness of outcomes. My research has investigated the implications of the person-affecting framework, using the concept of “claims-across-outcomes”—a concept that seeks to make the framework more rigorous and to draw clear implications from it. This talk will present and synthesize the results of this research program. In a nutshell: the claims-across-outcomes framework argues for a moral-goodness ranking that satisfies an equity axiom (the Pigou-Dalton axiom), as opposed to utilitarianism; is neutral to individual differences in desert; and (extended to the variable-population context) implies the Repugnant Conclusion. In short, person-affecting consequentialism is equity-regarding, desert-neutral, and repugnant. Surprisingly, perhaps, the simple idea that moral goodness is grounded on well-being gains and losses has these upshots.

:It is a well-established fact that algorithms can be instruments of injustice. It is less frequently discussed, however, how current modes of AI deployment often make the very discovery of injustice difficult, if not impossible. In this paper, we focus on the effects of algorithmic profiling on epistemic agency. In particular, we show how algorithmic profiling can give rise to epistemic injustice through the depletion of epistemic resources that are needed to interpret and evaluate certain experiences. By doing so, we not only demonstrate how the philosophical conceptual framework of epistemic injustice can help pinpoint systematic harms from algorithmic profiling, but we also identify a novel source of hermeneutical injustice that to date has received little attention in the relevant literature.

In this talk I'll describe the phenomenon of higher order defeat and explain why it isn't well accommodated in a classical Bayesian framework. I'll then discuss two alternatives to the Bayesian picture and explain why I favor one over the other.

Abstract: TBA

In this talk, I will report on results obtained in collaboration with Soroush Rafiee Rad (UvA, Amsterdam), Maher Abou Zeid (Bayreuth), and Sebastian Braun (Bayreuth) regarding some positive and negative effects of group deliberation. In the first part, we will look at what has been called the meta-agreement hypothesis. The hypothesis states that deliberation can help avoid incoherent group preferences by fostering the creation of meta-agreements, which should ensure single-peaked preferences. I will present results that provide qualified support for this hypothesis. More precisely, the results point toward conditions under which deliberation does help avoid intransitive or cyclic group preferences, either in terms of how open-minded the participants are or the number of alternatives they can choose from. In the second part, I will look at one form of path dependence in deliberation, the so-called anchoring effect, which is when the first speakers carry substantially more weight than the others on the final result of deliberation. Our results show that anchoring frequently occurs, in a way that is correlated with the creation of single-peaked profiles, and that its effect is the strongest in comparison with other factors like expertise or the popularity of opinions. I will conclude by reflecting on balancing such positive and negative effects to arrive at a more nuanced view of what deliberation can and cannot achieve.

This event will take place online via Zoom. To join online just follow these instructions: Download Zoom Join the event using this link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/94960424116 (Passcode: Ramsey) Please note that these events are routinely recorded, with the edited footage being made publicly available on our website and YouTube channel. We will only record the audio, the slides and the speaker and will not include…

Abstract: The fundamental goal of science is to increase scientific knowledge—that is, to continuously generate more accurate explanations of various natural phenomena, from black holes to human behaviour. In an ideal world, finding the best possible explanations would require testing and comparing “all possible theories”, because this would allow objectively identifying the most accurate ones. In practice, however, this is not…

Abstract: Suppose you could either do (A.) bring about Tom at 50 and Harry at 71, or (B.) Tom at 70 and Dick at 50. According to Derek Parfit’s No Difference View we should opt for A. Perhaps the most prominent alternative to Parfit’s view, namely Michael Otsuka and Larry Temkin ‘Shortfall Complaints’ view holds that we should opt for B.…