Careful readers of Wittgenstein tend to overlook the significance his engineering education had for his philosophy; this despite Georg von Wright’s stern admonition that “the two most important facts to remember about Wittgenstein were, firstly, that he was Viennese, and, secondly, that he was an engineer.” Such oversight is particularly tempting for those of us who come to philosophy late, having first been schooled in math and science, because our education tricks us into thinking we understand engineering by extension. But (...) we do not. I will illustrate this common tendency to misread Wittgenstein by examining three engineering concepts that have little significance for science but played important roles in Wittgenstein’s philosophical thinking. These are: method of projection, dynamical similarity, and satisfactoriness. The upshot of this analysis will be a strong challenge to the myth of his putative fideism because neither fideism nor its contrary simply would have occurred to Wittgensteinthe-engineer. (shrink)

In 1998, a lead researcher at a Midwestern university submitted as his own a document that had 64 instances of strings of 10 or more words that were identical to a consultant’s masters thesis and replicated a data chart, all of whose 16 entries were identical to three and four significant figures. He was fired because his actions were wrong. Curiously, he was completely unable to see that his actions were wrong. This phenomenon is discussed in light of recent advances (...) in neuroscience and used to argue for a change in the standard way engineering ethics is taught. I argue that engineering ethics is better taught in the form of a design course in order to maximize “somatic” learning. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s attitude toward Christian believing is more complicated that many philosophers have been led to believe. The hiccup in the received account began as a neglect of Wittgenstein’s subject-involving method in philosophy of religion. Wittgenstein’s method cannot be subsumed under the rubric of philosophy-as-[quasi-scientific]-explanation. Rather, Wittgenstein’s method was subject-involving in the sense that by his own methodology he put himself at existential risk. In 1931 he wrote that “[t]he movement of thought in my philosophizing should be discernible also in the (...) history of my spirit, of its moral concepts & in the understanding of my situation”. Apparently, to understand Wittgenstein’s method we are right to look closely at his biography. In the following essay I show that during his Norwegian sabbaticals, especially that of 1936–1937, Wittgenstein embodied the very method he advocated in his exploration of Christian believing. This method involved him in an enduring practice of actually praying, in close study of passionate Christian thinkers, and in public confession of his private sins. Although his journey ends shy of Christian believing, the form of his spiritual quest exemplifies the manner in which philosophers of religion ought to consider as internal to the investigation of religious concepts. (shrink)

Hauerwas's refusal to translate the argument displayed in "With the Grain of the Universe" (his recent Gifford Lectures) into language that "anyone" can understand is itself part of the argument. Consequently, readers will not understand what Hauerwas is up to until they have attained fluency in the peculiar language that has epitomized three decades of Hauerwas's scholarship. Such fluency is not easily gained. Nevertheless, in this review essay, I situate Hauerwas's baffling language against the backdrop of his corpus to show (...) at least this much: "With the Grain of the Universe" transforms natural theology into "witness." In the end, my essay may demonstrate what many have feared, that Hauerwas is, in fact, a Christian apologist-though of a very ancient sort. (shrink)

Using Alastair MacIntyre's work as a methodological guide for doing ethics in the Christian tradition, the contributors to this work offer essays on three subjects: description of MacIntyre's approach; reflections on moral issues; and selected essays on family, abortion, feminism and more.

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of the lives of most psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, many psychotherapists lack the training to effectively and ethically address these issues with their clients. At times, religious or spiritual concerns may be relevant to the reasons clients seek treatment, either as areas of conflict or distress for clients or as sources of strength and support that the psychotherapist may access to enhance the benefit of psychotherapy. This article reviews persistent ethical issues and dilemmas relevant to (...) providing psychotherapy to clients for whom issues of religion and spirituality are clinically relevant. Ethical considerations include assessment, advertising and public statements, informed consent, competence, boundary issues and multiple relationships, cooperation with other professionals, and how to effectively integrate religious and spiritual interventions into ongoing psychotherapy. A decision-making process is presented to guide psychotherapists in their clinical work with clients for whom religious and spiritual issues are salient or clearly linked to their presenting problems. (shrink)

Dutch Book arguments have been presented for static belief systems and for belief change by conditionalization. An argument is given here that a rule for belief change which under certain conditions violates probability kinematics will leave the agent open to a Dutch Book.

Two criticisms of Dutch strategy arguments are discussed: One says that the arguments fail because agents who know the arguments can use that knowledge to avoid Dutch strategy vulnerability, even though they violate the norm in question. The second consists of cases alleged to be counterexamples to the norms that Dutch strategy arguments defend. The principle of Reflection and its Dutch strategy argument are discussed, but most attention is given to the rule of Conditionalization and to Jeffrey's rule for (...) fallible learning. I argue that the first criticism should be rejected, and that the second presents no counterexamples to the rationality of commitment to the rules. (shrink)

Defenders of sophisticated evidential decision theory (EDT) have argued (1) that its failure to provide correct recommendations in problems where the agent believes himself asymmetrically fallible in executing his choices is no flaw of the theory, and (2) that causal decision theory gives incorrect recommendations in certain examples unless it is supplemented with an additional metatickle or ratifiability deliberation mechanism. In the first part of this paper, I argue that both positions are incorrect. In the second part of the paper, (...) I show how the agent's preferences involved in standard counterexamples to EDT, such as Newcomb's problem, violate the Jeffrey/Bolker preference axioms, specifically the Impartiality axiom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophy of George Engel and the Philosophy of MedicineJeffrey P. Spike (bio)KeywordsGeorge Engel, psychosocial medicine, medical education, medical humanities, interviewing skills, philosophy of medicine, scientific methodDoctor Brad Lewis has encouraged us to consider George Engel’s philosophy with his excellent essay on Engel and Pragmatism. As a philosopher teaching full time in a medical school, it is refreshing to have an opportunity to analyze the work of two (...) physicians at this level of reflection and abstraction. It is even more of a pleasure because I knew Dr. Engel personally while I was teaching at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. I will make some observations of the philosophy behind Dr. Engel’s work, both published and practical, that is, as reflected in his writing but also in his influence in the medical curriculum at the institution that he called home for some thirty years (as seems appropriate when considering someone’s bona fides as a pragmatist).Engel’s Philosophy and Medicine’s PhilosophyGeorge Engel’s primary philosophical concern was to fight the powerful belief (or perhaps delusion) that medicine was evolving into a pure physical science, an extension of biochemistry and cell biology, or as we would now call them, proteomics and genomics. There is little evidence that he espoused any one methodology for basic science, so much as he opposed any one methodology for medicine. So to say he was a pragmatist seems underdetermined by his words, if that is taken to mean he advocated for changing the methodological model for scientific research. Rather the question is whether his preferred medical methodology is best characterized as pragmatic, or by some other description. On that score I agree with Lewis wholeheartedly.Of course, it might be that the claim of pragmatism is not meant to suggest a change in method for basic science, but to advocate for retaining an appreciation for the whole range of approaches to knowledge, from experimental science to epidemiology, and from epidemiology to acculturation. By that definition of pragmatism, Engel was indeed a pragmatist. Interpreted this way, he wanted medicine to stop worshipping the scientific method and appreciate that there are many paths to knowledge besides through the wet lab.It might be said that there are different scientific methods for different sciences, and Engel wanted us to appreciate that the reductionist methods [End Page 315] appropriate to the sciences of the small are not necessarily methods that can be applied to all sizes of objects we study, or all levels of reality (like the psychological and social). This is the truth about the world, although I am not sure that this is what Engel meant. As Lewis notes, Engel’s writing does sometimes sound as if he worshipped at the alter of science, as if all subjects of importance can be studied scientifically. But if he believed that, he was not correct. It might be, if all the subjects of the university that Lewis mentions are important, that some will turn out to be able to be studied in academically rigorous methods that are not scientific in any of the usual meanings of the word. Consider philosophy itself, for example.To the degree that it may stretch the evidence to say that Engel would have advocated for a pragmatic scientific method, it is still the case that pragmatism as outlined by Lewis and Engel’s biopsychosocial model can both be used to help medicine understand itself and overcome the temptation to idolize science. Medicine is not a science, or at least it is not just a science; in fact, I would suggest that it never was a science, and it will never be a science. Medicine is about health and illness, and uses whatever science it can to promote health and to treat (ameliorate or cure) illness.None of this should necessarily lead us to idolize pragmatism either. If each subject has its own ideal methodology for study, then it may be that pragmatism is the preferred method for, say, clinical judgment, whereas the scientific method is the best for the ‘hard’ sciences, and logic for philosophy. Or perhaps pragmatism and inductive logic are competing models for clinical... (shrink)

Principle monists believe that our moral duties, such as fidelity and non-maleficence, can be justified in terms of one basic moral principle. Principle pluralists disagree, some suggesting that only an excessive taste for simplicity or a desire to mimic natural science could lead one to endorse monism. In Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford, 2000), Brad Hooker defends a monist theory, employing the method of reflective equilibrium to unify the moral duties under a version of rule consequentialism. Hooker's arguments have (...) drawn powerful criticisms from pluralists such as Alan Thomas, Phillip Montague and Philip Stratton-Lake. Against these critics, I argue that Hooker's monism enjoys certain practical advantages associated with the simplicity of a single basic principle. These advantages are often overlooked because they appear primarily in cases of second-order deliberation, in which one must decide whether our basic moral duties support a certain derivative duty. I argue that these advantages of monism over pluralism are analogous to the advantages that generalists claim over moral particularism. Because pluralists are generalists, I conclude that they are in an awkward dialectical position to dismiss Hooker's monism for the reasons they usually offer. (shrink)

A timely and penetrating investigation, this book seeks to transform moral philosophy. In the face of continuing disagreement about which general moral principles are correct, there has been a resurgence of interest in the idea that correct moral judgements can be only about particular cases. This view--moral particularism --forecasts a revolution in ordinary moral practice that has until now consisted largely of appeals to general moral principles. Moral particularism also opposes the primary aim of most contemporary normative moral theory that (...) attempts to show that either one general principle, or a set of general principles, is superior to all its rivals. (shrink)

This paper starts by characterising moral requirements and everyday thought. Then ways in which moral requirements shape everyday thought are identified, including the way internalised moral requirements prevent some possible actions from even being considered. The paper then explains that everyday moral thought might be structured by dispositions to which there are corresponding principles even if these principles do not usually appear in the conscious thoughts of agents while they are engaged in everyday moral decision-making. Nevertheless, especially when conflicts between (...) moral considerations arise, alternative possible resolutions are typically framed in terms of principles. The paper pushes on to discuss how everyday moral thought is pushed to consider principles, engage in moral theorising, and even consider abstract moral theories. (shrink)

The problem of the man who met death in Damascus appeared in the infancy of the theory of rational choice known as causal decision theory. A straightforward, unadorned version of causal decision theory is presented here and applied, along with Brian Skyrms’ deliberation dynamics, to Death in Damascus and similar problems. Decision instability is a fascinating topic, but not a source of difficulty for causal decision theory. Andy Egan’s purported counterexample to causal decision theory, Murder Lesion, is considered; a simple (...) response shows how Murder Lesion and similar examples fail to be counterexamples, and clarifies the use of the unadorned theory in problems of decision instability. I compare unadorned causal decision theory to previous treatments by Frank Arntzenius and by Jim Joyce, and recommend a well-founded heuristic that all three accounts can endorse. Whatever course deliberation takes, causal decision theory is consistently a good guide to rational action. (shrink)

The quest for causes behind health and sickness proposes deeper causes like per- sonality and general view of life. Two such concepts have been shown to associate with health indicators in a systematic way, sense of coherence and view of life. Sense of coherence is defined as the sum of three factors, comprehensibility, manage- ability, and meaningfulness. View of life consists of three components, general theories of man and the world, a central value system, and a basic attitude. Two em- (...) pirical studies are summarized where the concepts are related to bereavement and health, respectively. It is concluded that there are many similarities between the two concepts. They both emphasize integration and coherence and connote basic struc- tures in belief systems. They can be related to personality structure and the coping process. The concepts differ in scope and depth. SOC can be considered as part of the connotation of VOL. SOC is quantitatively measurable while VOL presumes qualitative methods of assessment. In studies of health, where factors pertaining to world view or sense of coherence are not in focus, but studied rather as possible confoun- ders, methodological simplicity points to use of the SOC concept. In studies of health where the deeper causal structures are in focus, VOL should also be used, since it per- mits greater depth of analysis. Ideally, both concepts should be applied for a full un- derstanding between man's inner processes and health. (shrink)

Consider the following causal exclusion principle: For all distinct properties F and F* such that F* supervenes on F, F and F* do not both cause a property G. Peter Menzies and Christian List have proven that it follows from a natural conception of causation as difference-making that this exclusion principle is not generally true. Rather, it turns out that whether the principle is true is a contingent matter. In addition, they have shown that in a wide range of empirically (...) ordinary cases, it follows that F* causes G and F does not. These cases plausibly include instances where F* is a mental property and F and G are physical properties. If this is the right conception of causation, it therefore turns out that the physical world is not causally closed. In this paper I show that there is an alternative conception of causation as difference-making that does not have the same consequences. Whether the physical world is causally closed therefore turns out to depend, inter alia, on which conception of difference-making is correct. I give a number of arguments for the alternative conception of difference-making. (shrink)

I argue against the claim, advanced by David Albert and Barry Loewer, that all non-fundamental laws can be derived from those required to underwrite the second law of thermodynamics.

The earliest philosophers thought deeply about ethical questions, but Aristotle founded ethics as a well-defined discipline. Brad Inwood focuses on the reception of Aristotelian ethical thought in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds and explores the thinker's influence on the philosophers who followed in his footsteps from 300 BCE to 200 CE.

Possible-worlds talk obscures, rather than clarifies, the debate about haecceitism. In this paper I distinguish haecceitism and anti-haecceitism from other doctrines that sometimes go under those names. Then I defend the claim that there are no non-tendentious definitions of ‘haecceitism’ and ‘anti-haecceitism’ using possible-worlds talk. That is, any definition of ‘haecceitism’ using possible-worlds talk depends, for its correctness, on a substantive theory of the nature of possible worlds. This explains why using possible-worlds talk when discussing haecceitism causes confusion: if the (...) parties to the discussion presuppose different theories of the nature of possible worlds, then they will mean different things by ‘haecceitism’. (shrink)

One guide to an argument's significance is the number and variety of refutations it attracts. By this measure, the Dutch book argument has considerable importance.2 Of course this measure alone is not a sure guide to locating arguments deserving of our attention—if a decisive refutation has really been given, we are better off pursuing other topics. But the presence of many and varied counterarguments at least suggests that either the refutations are controversial, or that their target admits of more than (...) one interpretation, or both. The main point of this paper is to focus on a way of understanding the Dutch Book argument (DBA) that avoids many of the well-known criticisms, and to consider how it fares against an important criticism that still remains: the objection that the DBA presupposes value-independence of bets. (shrink)

That believing truly as a matter of luck does not generally constitute knowing has become epistemic commonplace. Accounts of knowledge incorporating this anti-luck idea frequently rely on one or another of a safety or sensitivity condition. Sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge have a well-known problem with necessary truths, to wit, that any believed necessary truth trivially counts as knowledge on such accounts. In this paper, we argue that safety-based accounts similarly trivialize knowledge of necessary truths and that two ways of responding (...) to this problem for safety, issuing from work by Williamson and Pritchard, are of dubious success. (shrink)

This book reconstructs in detail the older Stoic theory of the psychology of action, discussing it in relation to Aristotelian, Epicurean, Platonic, and some of the more influential modern theories. Important Greek terms are transliterated and explained; no knowledge of Greek is required.

Is the common cause principle merely one of a set of useful heuristics for discovering causal relations, or is it rather a piece of heavy duty metaphysics, capable of grounding the direction of causation itself? Since the principle was introduced in Reichenbach’s groundbreaking work The Direction of Time (1956), there have been a series of attempts to pursue the latter program—to take the probabilistic relationships constitutive of the principle of the common cause and use them to ground the direction of (...) causation. These attempts have not all explicitly appealed to the principle as originally formulated; it has also appeared in the guise of independence conditions, counterfactual overdetermination, and, in the causal modelling literature, as the causal markov condition. In this paper, I identify a set of difficulties for grounding the asymmetry of causation on the principle and its descendents. The first difficulty, concerning what I call the vertical placement of causation, consists of a tension between considerations that drive towards the macroscopic scale, and considerations that drive towards the microscopic scale—the worry is that these considerations cannot both be comfortably accommodated. The second difficulty consists of a novel potential counterexample to the principle based on the familiar Einstein Podolsky Rosen (EPR) correlations in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Followers of Wittgenstein allegedly once held that a meaningful claim to know that p could only be made if there was some doubt about the truth of p. The correct response to this thesis involved appealing to the distinction between the semantic content of a sentence and features attaching to its use. It is inappropriate to assert a knowledge-claim unless someone in the audience has doubt about what the speaker claims to know. But this fact has nothing to do with (...) the semantic content of knowledgeascriptions; it is entirely explicable by appeal to pragmatic facts about felicitous assertion. (shrink)

This paper looks at the debates between internalism and externalism in mind and epistemology. In each realm, internalists face what we call 'The Connection Problem', while externalists face what we call 'The Problem of Opacity'. We offer an integrated account of thought content and epistemic warrant that overcomes the problems. We then apply the framework to debates between internalists and externalists in metaethics.

Thats logic. LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking Glass 1-1. The fundamental problem of this work is the question of the nature of scientific inference.

Data science, and the related field of big data, is an emerging discipline involving the analysis of data to solve problems and develop insights. This rapidly growing domain promises many benefits to both consumers and businesses. However, the use of big data analytics can also introduce many ethical concerns, stemming from, for example, the possible loss of privacy or the harming of a sub-category of the population via a classification algorithm. To help address these potential ethical challenges, this paper maps (...) and describes the main ethical themes that were identified via systematic literature review. It then identifies a possible structure to integrate these themes within a data science project, thus helping to provide some structure in the on-going debate with respect to the possible ethical situations that can arise when using data science analytics. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is to further a discussion of codes of ethics as institutionalized organizational structures that extend some form of legitimacy to organizations. The particular form of legitimacy is of critical importance to our analysis. After reviewing various theories of legitimacy, we analyze the literature on how legitimacy is derived from codes of ethics to discover which specific form of legitimacy is gained from their presence in organizations. We content analyze a sample of codes to consider the (...) question of whether a strategic, self-interested rationale lies behind the adoption of a code of ethics. We propose that the process of employing codes of ethics in this strategic manner has become, through isomorphism, an institutionalized practice that itself confers a cognitive form of legitimacy to the organization and further distances the codes from their moral foundation. (shrink)

It is widely held that the influence of risk on rational decisions is not entirely explained by the shape of an agent’s utility curve. Buchak (Erkenntnis, 2013, Risk and rationality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, in press) presents an axiomatic decision theory, risk-weighted expected utility theory (REU), in which decision weights are the agent’s subjective probabilities modified by his risk-function r. REU is briefly described, and the global applicability of r is discussed. Rabin’s (Econometrica 68:1281–1292, 2000) calibration theorem strongly suggests that (...) plausible levels of risk aversion cannot be fully explained by concave utility functions; this provides motivation for REU and other theories. But applied to the synchronic preferences of an individual agent, Rabin’s result is not as problematic as it may first appear. Theories that treat outcomes as gains and losses (e.g. prospect theory and cumulative prospect theory) account for risk sensitivity in a way not available to REU. Reference points that mark the difference between gains and losses are subject to framing, many instances of which cannot be regarded as rational. However, rational decision theory may recognize the difference between gains and losses, without endorsing all ways of fixing the point of reference. In any event, REU is a very interesting theory. (shrink)

Richard Jeffrey is beyond dispute one of the most distinguished and influential philosophers working in the field of decision theory and the theory of knowledge. His work is distinctive in showing the interplay of epistemological concerns with probability and utility theory. Not only has he made use of standard probabilistic and decision theoretic tools to clarify concepts of evidential support and informed choice, he has also proposed significant modifications of the standard Bayesian position in order that it provide a (...) better fit with actual human experience. Probability logic is viewed not as a source of judgment but as a framework for explaining the implications of probabilistic judgments and their mutual compatability. This collection of essays spans a period of some 35 years and includes what have become some of the classic works in the literature. There is also one completely new piece, while in many instances Jeffrey includes afterthoughts on the older essays. (shrink)

Could space consist entirely of extended regions, without any regions shaped like points, lines, or surfaces? Peter Forrest and Frank Arntzenius have independently raised a paradox of size for space like this, drawing on a construction of Cantor’s. I present a new version of this argument and explore possible lines of response.