Suppose one sets up a sequence of less and less valuable objects such that each object in the sequence is only marginally worse than its immediate predecessor. Could one in this way arrive at something that is dramatically inferior to the point of departure? It has been claimed that if there is a radical value difference between the objects at each end of the sequence, then at some point there must be a corresponding radical difference between the adjacent elements. The (...) underlying picture seems to be that a radical gap cannot be scaled by a series of steps, if none of the steps itself is radical. We show that this picture is incorrect on a stronger interpretation of value superiority, but correct on a weaker one. Thus, the conclusion we reach is that, in some sense at least, abrupt breaks in such decreasing sequences cannot be avoided, but that such unavoidable breaks are less drastic than has been suggested. In an appendix written by John Broome and Wlodek Rabinowicz, the distinction between two kinds of value superiority is extended from objects to their attributes. (shrink)

Suppose one sets up a sequence of less and less valuable objects such that each object in the sequence is only marginally worse than its immediate predecessor. Could one in this way arrive at something that is dramatically inferior to the point of departure? It has been claimed that if there is a radical value difference between the objects at each end of the sequence, then at some point there must be a corresponding radical difference between the adjacent elements. The (...) underlying picture seems to be that a radical gap cannot be scaled by a series of steps, if none of the steps itself is radical. We show that this picture is incorrect on a stronger interpretation of value superiority, but correct on a weaker one. Thus, the conclusion we reach is that, in some sense at least, abrupt breaks in such decreasing sequences cannot be avoided, but that such unavoidable breaks are less drastic than has been suggested. In an appendix written by John Broome and Wlodek Rabinowicz, the distinction between two kinds of value superiority is extended from objects to their attributes. (shrink)

A search is under way for a theory that can accommodate our intuitions in population axiology. The object of this search has proved elusive. This is not surprising since, as we shall see, any welfarist axiology that satisfies three reasonable conditions implies at least one of three counter-intuitive conclusions. I shall start by pointing out the failures in three recent attempts to construct an acceptable population axiology. I shall then present an impossibility theorem and conclude with a short discussion of (...) how it might be extended to pluralist axiologies, that is, axiologies that take more values than welfare into account. (shrink)

Suppose that A and B are two kinds of goods such that more of each is better than less. A is strongly superior to B if any amount of A is better than any amount of B. It is weakly superior to B if some amount of A is better than any amount of B. There are many examples of these relations in the literature, sometimes under the labels “higher goods” and “discontinuity.” The chapter gives a precise and generalized statement (...) of Strong and Weak Superiority and discusses different ways in which these relations can be relevant to the aggregation of welfare. It also proves a number of general results. One of the results gives rise to a dilemma: It can be used as an argument against the existence of value superiority or, alternatively, as an argument against the view that superiority entails a radical difference in value. (shrink)

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives although the total welfare is the same in both cases, and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. I shall discuss two interesting suggestions that seem to support this idea. Firstly, the idea there is a positive level of well-being above which a life has to reach to (...) have positive contributive value to a population. This view is usually called critical level utilitarianism. Secondly, the viewthat it makes an outcome worse if people are worse off than they otherwise could have been. I shall call this view comparativism. Firstly, I shall describe what I call the pure case of life extension versus replacement. Then I shall very briefly describe some different views about the value of life extension and indicate why I think some of the arguments in favor and against life extension fail. I shall then turn to the implications of critical level utilitarianism and comparativism in regards to life extension versus replacement, which is the main topic of this chapter. (shrink)

This handbook presents up-to-date theoretical analyses of problems associated with the moral standing of future people in current decision-making. Future people pose an especially hard problem for our current decision-making, since their number and their identities are not fixed but depend on the choices the present generation makes. Do we make the world better by creating more people with good lives? What do we owe future generations in terms of justice? Such questions are not only philosophically difficult and important, but (...) also directly relevant to many practical decisions and policy issues, including on climate, health, population control and taxation. If we are to adequately assess such issues, we must be able to determine the value of differently sized populations. The aim of this handbook is to shed light on the value of population change and the nature of our obligations to future generations, and to offer practical guidance to policy-makers as to how our duties to future generations should be discharged. It contains an extensive and accessible introduction for those unfamiliar with the topic of population ethics as well as original work from key figures in academic debates on population ethics covering three main themes: ways out of the paradoxes of population ethics, questioning some philosophical and methodological assumptions underlying these paradoxes, and several applications of population ethics to real world issues. (shrink)

Fred Feldman has proposed a desert-adjusted version of utilitarianism,, as a plausible population axiology. Among other things, he claims that justicism avoids Derek Parfit's. This paper explains the theory and tries to straighten out some of its ambiguities. Moreover, it is shown that it is not clear whether justicism avoids the repugnant conclusion and that it is has other counter-intuitive implications. It is concluded that justicism is not convincing as a population axiology.

Grossmann proposes the “fearful ape hypothesis,” suggesting that heightened fearfulness in early life is evolutionarily adaptive. We question this claim with evidence that (1) perceived fearfulness in children is associated with negative, not positive long-term outcomes; (2) caregivers are responsive to all affective behaviors, not just those perceived as fearful; and (3) caregiver responsiveness serves to reduce perceived fearfulness.

The bases for the author's semantic theory include a study of the historical development of word meanings, links in developmental processes, and the various explanations of the facts of a language. The book includes discussions of the function of language, the definition of verbal meaning, and the production and comprehension of speech.

The term coherence is used in many connections. We often speak of coherent reasoning, coherent activities, coherent bodies, and coherent phenomena. In science this term is often used to indicate continuity of a structure in space and time. If many individuals can simultaneously observe similar sets of coherent phenomena, we infer with some justification, first, that the phenomena observed have some kind of correspondence with activities in an external world, that is, a world independent of the existence of the individual (...) observers, and second, that the coherence itself is an attribute of the external world. In a recently published article, to which I shall make several references in this paper, I have called attention to the fact that the science of physics is based on the form and the changes in form of an immediately observed phenomenological world, called the physical world, which can be completely characterized as a structure in space and time. In his analysis of the foundations of the science of physics Eddington has clearly shown that theoretical physics deals exclusively with structures of the type described in the mathematical theory of groups, and that our knowledge of the physical world could have been reached by our sense of vision alone. Coherence in the physical world is that characteristic of the structure which describes the more or less permanent relationship between phenomena in different parts of space at approximately the same time, or a regular sequence in the changing phenomena at approximately the same region of space. (shrink)

In _The Beginning of the World in Renaissance Jewish Thought_, Brian Ogren deeply analyzes late fifteenth century Italian Jewish thought concerning the creation of the world and the beginning of time. Ogren examines uses of philosophy and Kabbalah in the thought of four important fifteenth century thinkers.

Recently, in his Rolf Schock Prize Lecture, Derek Parfit has suggested a novel way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing what he calls “imprecision” in value comparisons. He suggests that in a range of important cases, populations of different sizes are only imprecisely comparable. Parfit suggests that this feature of value comparisons opens up a way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other counterintuitive conclusions, and thus solves one of the major challenges in ethics. In this article, I (...) try to clarify Parfit's proposal and evaluate whether it will help us with the paradoxes in population ethics. (shrink)

Recently, in his Rolf Schock Prize Lecture, Derek Parfit has suggested a novel way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing what he calls “imprecision” in value comparisons. He suggests that in a range of important cases, populations of different sizes are only imprecisely comparable. Parfit suggests that this feature of value comparisons opens up a way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other counterintuitive conclusions, and thus solves one of the major challenges in ethics. In this article, I (...) try to clarify Parfit’s proposal and evaluate whether it will help us with the paradoxes in population ethics. (shrink)

Unveränderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1930.

This paper deals with various aspects of the development of data systems for engineering materials. The problem considered here is the difference between the end-users' mental model of materials, which focuses on performance, and the concepts of properties of materials held by materials specialists. Previous treatises on this problem have elaborated on systems aspects in general, emphasising incompatibilities in the relationship mentioned and the means of overcoming these incompatibilities by service management. Another perspective applied has been the historical one, combined (...) with experience of traditional views on science and technology. The present paper pursues this general path by discussing the problem in terms of visions, illusions and myths. These phenomena are thought to be both inevitable in this context and necessary in any attempt to understand the dilemma of data systems for engineering materials. It is believed that the views of the different parties involved are to a great extent steered by visions, illusions and myths, examples of which are discussed. Furthermore, it is suggested that these phenomena have roots in, or are expressions of, paradigms and values related to world pictures. Admittedly eclectic, this discussion leads to the conclusion that a solution to the dilemma in question cannot be found within computer science, materials technology and design theory only. Guidance has to be sought in philosophy and theory of science as well as in literature and the arts. In order to make it possible to implement ideas arrived at by such means, practitioners of psychology will probably have to be consulted. (shrink)

During the last two decades considerable efforts have been made to develop computerized data systems for engineering materials. The results have not come up to the expectations of systems that can be used by designers for selecting of materials. Some factors have been recognized as responsible for the slow progress. It has proved difficult, however, for those involved in this development to make use of such information about the systems in question. Conflicts have occurred between different parties involved. It now (...) seems that too little attention has been paid to the historical background of knowledge and systems related to civiliziation and society. A recently published review of world history from the point of view of the emergence of information technology has provided a basis for some considerations about the nature and roles of data systems. It can be shown that certain activities or features characterize each period of civilization and the development of computers and computerization should be considered as part of this sequence. The same is true for the world history of thinking and knowledge. In the present paper these historical considerations are combined with the observation that in their thinking and perception of ideas people appear to carry with them traditions from the past in varying degrees. Hence differences of opinion about the nature and roles of materials data systems may be explained by differences in the imprint of historical developments on people's ideas. In order to apply this lesson to the development of materials data systems, one has to learn also from the varying interpretations of world history that have been written through the ages. The best approach will probably be incremental and pragmatic rather than holistic and synoptic. (shrink)

Traditional ethical theories have paradoxical implications in regards to questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future people. It has been suggested that the crux of the problem resides in an all too ‘impersonal’ axiology and that the problems of population axiology can be solved by adopting a ‘Person Affecting Restriction’ which in its slogan form states that an outcome can only be better than another if it is better for people. This move has been especially popular in the (...) context of medical ethics where many of the problems of population axiology are actualized. Examples are embryo or egg selection, pre-implantation genetic testing, assisted reproduction programmes, abortion, just to mention a few. I discuss a number of different interpretations of the Restriction and in particular one interpretation which I call Comparativism. According to this view, we should draw a distinction between uniquely and non-uniquely realizable people. The former people only exist in one out of two possible outcomes, whereas the latter exist in both of the compared outcomes. The idea is that we should give more weight to the well-being of non-uniquely realizable people or take it into account in a different way as compared to the well-being of uniquely realizable people. I argue that the different versions of the Person Affecting Restriction and Comparativism either have counterintuitive implications of their own or are compatible with traditional theories such as Utilitarianism. (shrink)

Consider a transitive value ordering of outcomes and lotteries on outcomes, which satisfies substitutivity of equivalents and obeys “continuity for easy cases,” i.e., allows compensating risks of small losses by chances of small improvements. Temkin (2001) has argued that such an ordering must also – rather counter-intuitively – allow chances of small improvements to compensate risks of huge losses. In this paper, we show that Temkin's argument is flawed but that a better proof is possible. However, it is more difficult (...) to determine what conclusions should be drawn from this result. Contrary to what Temkin suggests, substitutivity of equivalents is a notoriously controversial principle. But even in the absence of substitutivity, the counter-intuitive conclusion is derivable from a strengthened version of continuity for easy cases. The best move, therefore, might be to question the latter principle, even in its original simple version: as we argue, continuity for easy cases gives rise to a sorites. (shrink)

It seems to be a widespread opinion that increasing the length of existing happy lives is better than creating new happy lives although the total welfare is the same in both cases, and that it may be better even when the total welfare is lower in the outcome with extended lives. I shall discuss two interesting suggestion that seems to support this idea, or so it has been argued. Firstly, the idea there is a positive level of wellbeing above which (...) a life has to reach to have positive contributive value to a population, so-called Critical Level Utilitarianism. Secondly, the view that it makes an outcome worse if people are worse off than they otherwise could have been, a view I call Comparativism. I shall show that although these theories do capture some of our intuitions about the value of longevity, they have such counterintuitive implications in other cases that we ultimately have to reject them. (shrink)

According topositive egalitarianism, not only do relations of inequality have negative value, as negative egalitarians claim, but relations of equality also have positive value. The egalitarian value of a population is a function of both pairwise relations of inequality (negative) and pairwise relations of equality (positive). Positive andnegative egalitarianismdiverge, especially in different-number cases. Hence, an investigation of positive egalitarianism might shed new light on the vexed topic of population ethics and our duties to future generations. We shall here, in light (...) of some recent criticism, further develop the idea of giving positive value to equal relations. (shrink)

For the last thirty years or so, there has been a search underway for a theory that can accommodate our intuitions in regard to moral duties to future generations. The object of this search has proved surprisingly elusive. The classical moral theories in the literature all have perplexing implications in this area. Classical Utilitarianism, for instance, implies that it could be better to expand a population even if everyone in the resulting population would be much worse off than in the (...) original. The main problem has been to find an adequate population theory, that is, a theory about the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of their lives, and their identities may vary. Since, arguably, any reasonable moral theory has to take these aspects of possible states of affairs into account when determining the normative status of actions, the study of population theory is of general import for moral theory. A number of theories have been proposed in the literature that purport to avoid counterintuitive implications such as the one mentioned above. The suggestions are diverse: introducing novel ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value, revising the notion of a life worth living, questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare, counting people’s welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modal features of their lives, and challenging the logic of axiological and normative concepts. We investigate the concepts and assumptions involved in these theories as well as their implications for population theory. In our discussion, we propose a number of intuitively appealing and logically weak adequacy conditions for an acceptable population theory. Finally, we consider whether it is possible to find a theory that satisfies all of these conditions. We prove that no such theory exists. (shrink)

Design can be thought of as a model for such endeavours as are intended to result in industrially manufactured products by means of thinking and other intellectual activity. Familiarity with the thinking involved in the designing process is important, not only for those engaged in training designers, but for anyone desirous of systemizing the endeavour. One procedure for approaching an understanding of the way designers think is to describe it with the help of different metaphors. There are some metaphors for (...) thinking about complicated and interrelated phenomena that should lend themselves to illustrating the thinking involved in design, albeit with reservations — e.g. the difficulty of allowing due consideration for what is unthinkable and indescribable in this context. (shrink)

Within the second book of his Rhetoric, intent upon the art of persuasion, Aristotle sets forth theearliest known methodical explication of human emotions. This placement seems rather peculiar,given the importance of emotional dispositions in both Aristotle’s theory of moral virtues and in hismoral psychology. One would expect to find a full account of the emotions in his extensivetreatment of virtues as it appears in his ethical treatises, or as part of his psychological system in DeAnima. In none of these places, (...) however, does a systematic treatment of this part of Aristotle’spsychology emerge as it does in the Rhetoric. Such is a surprising, seemingly unusual phenomenonin consideration of Aristotle’s extreme care for and obsession with organization and categorization.Earnest analysis, however, reveals the intricate ingeniousness of Aristotle’s innovative project.Emotion, based upon the interplay between what Aristotle deems to be the ‘uniquely human’rational and irrational parts of the human soul, involves Being and Being’s cognition of itself, andits dialectical encounter with the faculty of pure reason. Within this encounter is born humanemotion.According to this formula, emotion is a phenomenon that is linked to concrete human existencewhile at the same time being fundamentally involved with cognition. Emotion bridges the gapbetween the this-worldliness of the human and his keen logic as a rational being. Such anunderstanding allows Aristotle to assert that emotional appeal, which often stands at the core ofrhetoric, is not necessarily a way of tricking people or avoiding critical response, but can be used topersuade by bringing facts to people’s awareness. Through his novel rhetoric of emotion, Aristotlenot only sheds light on the human condition, he brings rhetoric itself into the realm of the rationaland the valid as a suitable means of human discourse. (shrink)

This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish ...

FD-Diss., Uppsala: University Printers, 2000 (ix+225 pages).

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in terms of their moral goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. The task has been to find an adequate theory about the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of their lives, and their identities may vary. So far, this field has largely ignored issues about uncertainty and the conditions that have been discussed mostly pertain (...) to the ranking of risk-free outcomes. Most public policy choices, however, are decisions under uncertainty, including policy choices that affect the size of a population. Here, we shall address the question of how to rank population prospects—that is, alternatives that contain uncertainty as to which population they will bring about—by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. We start by illustrating how well-known population axiologies can be extended to population prospect axiologies. And we show that new problems arise when extending population axiologies to prospects. In particular, traditional population axiologies lead to prospect-versions of the problems that they praised for avoiding in the risk-free settings. Finally, we identify an intuitive adequacy condition that, we contend, should be satisfied by any population prospect axiology, and show how given this condition, the impossibility theorems in population axiology can be extended to (non-trivial) impossibility theorems for population prospect axiology. (shrink)

There are two classic principles for deciding who should have a right to vote on the laws, the All Affected Principle and the All Subjected Principle. This article is devoted, firstly, to providing a sympathetic reconstruction of the All Subjected Principle, identifying the most credible account of what it is to be subject to the law. Secondly, it shows that that best account still suffers some serious difficulties, which might best be resolved by treating the All Subjected Principle as a (...) subset of the All Affected Principle with which the All Subjected Principle must in any case be supplemented. (shrink)

Who should have a right to take part in which decisions in democratic decision making? This “boundary problem” is a central issue for democracy and is of both practical and theoretical import. If nothing else, all different notions of democracy have one thing in common: a reference to a community of individuals, “a people”, who takes decision in a democratic fashion. However, that a decision is made with a democratic decision method by a certain group of people doesn’t suffice for (...) making the decision democratic or satisfactory from a democratic perspective. The group also has to be the right one. But what makes a group the right one? The criteria by which to identify the members of the people entitled to participate in collective decisions have been surprisingly difficult to pin down. In this paper, I shall revisit some of the problems discussed in my 2005 paper in light of some recent criticism and discussion of my position in the literature, and address a number of new issues. (shrink)