Knowledge of the backgrounds of students of behaviour working in the field of applied animal behavior science may help us to recognize their influence on conclusions reached in a particular study and on more general points of view. This recognition may result in a speed up of the progress in this science, to the benefit of science and animals. Some types are: (1) Eco-ethologists (ethologists of the hunters-type). They like to stalk healthy wild animals in their natural environment. They are (...) less interested in the abnormal behavior of domestic animals under husbandry circumstances. (2) Behaviorists. These are psychologists that still think in a man-animal dichotomy. They are not interested in animals for their own sake but as models for human behavior. (3) Behavior physiologists. These biologists are not primarily interested in behavior. Because of the type of experiments they perform they have an aversity against animal protectionists. (4) Ethologists of the farmers type. These ethologists want to posses animals, collect animal species, take care of them and breed them. They are able to speak on approximately the same wavelength as farmers as well as animal protectionists. (5) Zootechnicians of the farmers type. These scientists want to make a living out of animals and like to take care for them. They are also able to speak at approximately the same wavelength as farmers and animal protectionists. (shrink)

Instances of explanatory reduction are often advocated on metaphysical grounds; given that the only real things in the world are subatomic particles and their interaction, we have to try to explain everything in terms of the laws of physics. In this paper, we show that explanatory reduction cannot be defended on metaphysical grounds. Nevertheless, indispensability arguments for reductive explanations can be developed, taking into account actual scientific practice and the role of epistemic interests. Reductive explanations might be indispensable to address (...) some epistemic interest answering a specific explanation-seeking question in the most accurate, adequate and efficient way. Just like explanatory pluralists often advocate the indispensability of higher levels of explanation pointing at the pragmatic value of the explanatory information obtained on these higher levels, we argue that explanatory reduction—traditionally understood as the contender of pluralism—can be defended in a similar way. The pragmatic value reductionist, lower level explanations might have in the biomedical sciences and the social sciences is illustrated by some case studies. (shrink)

Recent pleas for more heterodoxy in explaining economic action have been defending a pluralism for economics. In this article, I analyse these defences by scrutinizing the pluralistic qualities in the work of one of the major voices of heterodoxy, Tony Lawson. This scrutiny will focus on Lawson's alternatives concerning ontology and explanation to mainstream economics. Subsequently, I will raise some doubts about Lawson's pluralism, and identify questions that will have to be addressed by heterodox economists in order to maintain the (...) claim of pluralism. (shrink)

The current study investigated how work-related disagreements—coined as conflicts—relate to workplace bullying, from the perspective of the target as well as the perpetrator. We hypothesized a positive indirect association between task conflicts and bullying through relationship conflicts. This process accounted for both for targets and perpetrators of bullying. Targets are distinguished from perpetrators in our assumption that this indirect effect is boosted by distributive conflict behavior, being yielding for targets and forcing for perpetrators. Results in a large representative sample of (...) the Flemish working population confirmed our hypotheses. Additionally, our study also revealed a direct effect from task conflicts to bullying in the analyses regarding the indirect as well as the conditional indirect effects. For perpetrators, both the indirect and direct relationships are moderated by forcing, underlining the importance of distributive conflict behavior particularly for the enactment of bullying behaviors. (shrink)

The development of ever smaller integrated circuits at the sub-micron and nanoscale—in accordance with Moore’s Law—drives the production of very small tags, smart cards, smart labels and sensors. Nanoelectronics and submicron technology supports surveillance technology which is practically invisible. I argue that one of the most urgent and immediate concerns associated with nanotechnology is privacy. Computing in the twenty-first century will not only be pervasive and ubiquitous, but also inconspicuous. If these features are not counteracted in design, they will facilitate (...) ubiquitous surveillance practices which are widely available, cheap, and intrusive. RFID technology is an instructive example of what nanotechnology has in store for privacy. (shrink)

An introduction to a special issue on computer ethics.

We present a Reformed view on the relation between Christianity and non-Christian religions. We then explore what this view entails for the question whether Christians and non-Christian religious believers refer to, believe in, and worship the same God. We first analyze the concepts of worship, belief-in, and reference, as well as their interrelations. We then argue that adherents of the Abrahamic religions plausibly refer to the same God, whereas adherents of non-Abrahamic religions do not refer to this God. Nonetheless, it (...) would be wrong to say that adherents of all Abrahamic religions believe in and worship the same God. (shrink)

Common sense philosophy holds that widely and deeply held beliefs are justified in the absence of defeaters. While this tradition has always had its philosophical detractors who have defended various forms of skepticism or have sought to develop rival epistemological views, recent advances in several scientific disciplines claim to have debunked the reliability of the faculties that produce our common sense beliefs. At the same time, however, it seems reasonable that we cannot do without common sense beliefs entirely. Arguably, science (...) and the scientific method are built on, and continue to depend on, common sense. This collection of essays debates the tenability of common sense in the face of recent challenges from the empirical sciences. It explores to what extent scientific considerations--rather than philosophical considerations--put pressure on common sense philosophy. The book is structured in a way that promotes dialogue between philosophers and scientists. Noah Lemos, one of the most influential contemporary advocates of the common sense tradition, begins with an overview of the nature and scope of common sense beliefs, and examines philosophical objections to common sense and its relationship to scientific beliefs. Then, the volume features essays by scientists and philosophers of science who discuss various proposed conflicts between commonsensical and scientific beliefs: the reality of space and time, about the nature of human beings, about free will and identity, about rationality, about morality, and about religious belief. Notable philosophers who embrace the common sense tradition respond to these essays to explore the connection between common sense philosophy and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, physics, and psychology. (shrink)

In the literature on scientific explanation two types of pluralism are very common. The first concerns the distinction between explanations of singular facts and explanations of laws: there is a consensus that they have a different structure. The second concerns the distinction between causal explanations and uni.cation explanations: most people agree that both are useful and that their structure is different. In this article we argue for pluralism within the area of causal explanations: we claim that the structure of a (...) causal explanation depends on the causal structure of the relevant fragment of the world and on the interests of the explainer. (shrink)

In a recent paper on realism and pragmatism published in this journal, Osmo Kivinen and Tero Piiroinen have been pleading for more methodological work in the philosophy of the social sciences—refining the conceptual tools of social scientists—and less philosophically ontological theories. Following this de-ontologizing approach, we scrutinize the debates on social explanation and contribute to the development of a pragmatic social science methodology. Analyzing four classic debates concerning explanation in the social sciences, we propose to shift the debate away from (...) (a) the ontologizing defenses of forms of social explanation, and (b) a winner-takes-all-approach. Instead, we advocate (c) a pragmatic approach towards social explanation, elaborating a rigorous framework for explanatory pluralism detached from the debates on social ontology. (shrink)

The development of ever smaller integrated circuits at the sub-micron and nanoscale—in accordance with Moore’s Law—drives the production of very small tags, smart cards, smart labels and sensors. Nanoelectronics and submicron technology supports surveillance technology which is practically invisible. I argue that one of the most urgent and immediate concerns associated with nanotechnology is privacy. Computing in the twenty-first century will not only be pervasive and ubiquitous, but also inconspicuous. If these features are not counteracted in design, they will facilitate (...) ubiquitous surveillance practices which are widely available, cheap, and intrusive. RFID technology is an instructive example of what nanotechnology has in store for privacy. (shrink)

The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the “phase 2” of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens’ privacy (...) and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens’ “personal data stores”, to be shared separately and selectively, voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates—if and when they want and for specific aims—with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society. (shrink)

This paper presents the first bibliometric mapping analysis of the field of computer and information ethics (C&IE). It provides a map of the relations between 400 key terms in the field. This term map can be used to get an overview of concepts and topics in the field and to identify relations between information and communication technology concepts on the one hand and ethical concepts on the other hand. To produce the term map, a data set of over thousand articles (...) published in leading journals and conference proceedings in the C&IE field was constructed. With the help of various computer algorithms, key terms were identified in the titles and abstracts of the articles and co-occurrence frequencies of these key terms were calculated. Based on the co-occurrence frequencies, the term map was constructed. This was done using a computer program called VOSviewer. The term map provides a visual representation of the C&IE field and, more specifically, of the organization of the field around three main concepts, namely privacy, ethics, and the Internet. (shrink)

In this article, we inquire into two contemporary participatory formats that seek to democratically intervene in scientific practice: the consensus conference and participatory technology assessment. We explain how these formats delegitimize conflict and disagreement by making a strong appeal to consensus. Based on our direct involvement in these formats and informed both by political philosophy and science and technology studies, we outline conceptions that contrast with the consensus ideal, including dissensus, disclosure, conflictual consensus and agonistic democracy. Drawing on the notion (...) of meta-consensus and a distinction between four models of democracy, we elaborate how a more positive valuation of conflict provides opportunities for mutual learning, the articulation of disagreement, and democratic modulation—three aspirations that are at the heart of most pTAs and consensus conferences. Disclosing the strengths and weaknesses of these different models is politically and epistemically useful, and should therefore be an integral part of the development of participation theory and process in science and technology. (shrink)

Is epistocracy epistemically superior to democracy? In this paper, I scrutinize some of the arguments for and against the epistemic superiority of epistocracy. Using empirical results from the literature on the epistemic benefits of diversity as well as the epistemic contributions of citizen science, I strengthen the case against epistocracy and for democracy. Disenfranchising, or otherwise discouraging anyone to participate in political life, on the basis of them not possessing a certain body of (social scientific) knowledge, is untenable also from (...) an epistemic point of view. Rather than focussing on individual competence, we should pay attention to the social constellation through which we produce knowledge to make sure we decrease epistemic loss (by ensuring diversity and inclusion) and increase epistemic productivity (by fostering a multiplicity of perspectives interacting fruitfully). Achieving those epistemic benefits requires a more democratic approach that differs significantly from epistocracy. (shrink)

Knowledge of the backgrounds of students of behaviour working in the field of applied animal behavior science may help us to recognize their influence on conclusions reached in a particular study and on more general points of view. This recognition may result in a speed up of the progress in this science, to the benefit of science and animals. Some types are: (1) Eco-ethologists (ethologists of the hunters-type). They like to stalk healthy wild animals in their natural environment. They are (...) less interested in the abnormal behavior of domestic animals under husbandry circumstances. (2) Behaviorists. These are psychologists that still think in a man-animal dichotomy. They are not interested in animals for their own sake but as models for human behavior. (3) Behavior physiologists. These biologists are not primarily interested in behavior. Because of the type of experiments they perform they have an aversity against animal protectionists. (4) Ethologists of the farmers type. These ethologists want to posses animals, collect animal species, take care of them and breed them. They are able to speak on approximately the same wavelength as farmers as well as animal protectionists. (5) Zootechnicians of the farmers type. These scientists want to make a living out of animals and like to take care for them. They are also able to speak at approximately the same wavelength as farmers and animal protectionists. (shrink)

In this chapter, I review different ways of dealing with values in science that philosophers have developed. I also examine how these play out in practice in contemporary political science debates. In particular, I scrutinize transparency (analyzing the Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT) debate in political science), representativeness (using research on central banking as an example), and, citizen engagement (considered in International Political Economy) as three conditions to make the influence of values in science justifiable. Doing so, I defend (...) strategies of dealing with values that go beyond the individual researcher, rather focusing on the role social-epistemic processes play in improving our collective epistemic practices and outputs. Hopefully, this chapter will engage political scientists to reflect on their strategies of dealing with value influences in science as well as help philosophers further developing these strategies – which would benefit from more social and political analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World: His Life and Ideas by Peter VictorJeroen Van Den Bergh (bio)Victor, Peter (2022). Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World: His Life and Ideas. Routledge, Oxon UK and New York USA (ISBN: 978–0–367-55694-5).Herman Daly (1938–2022) spent a lifetime thinking about how to achieve a sustainable economy. In an inclusive biography, Canadian economist and environmental scientist Peter Victor discusses his ideas, critiques (...) and debates with others, while clarifying his motivations and struggles. Daly has greatly influenced others, as reflected by numerous prizes awarded to him. This influence is confirmed by original text boxes in the book that contain statements of many colleagues about his work and person, obtained through a questionnaire survey by the author.As a young man, Daly decided to study economics as he imagined it combined humanities and science. He was disappointed in it being less scientific than hoped, but his environmental concern motivated him to work on reestablishing the foundations of the field in environmental science and ethics. Daly is best known for his critique of economic growth and his alternative of the “steady-state economy.” He contributed, however, many other novel concepts and ideas during his lifetime, such as the ends-means spectrum, empty vs full world, uneconomic growth and optimal scale.Victor explains these ideas in a calm pace, showing a deep knowledge of Daly’s work. He, moreover, is able to connect it to ongoing sustainability research. He does all this in the course of thirteen chapters, covering Daly’s early life, education and career, his views on economics, his personal philosophy and the role of religion, his proposal for a steady-state economy, and his opinions on economic growth, population and migration, money and banking, and the perils of trade. [End Page 117]Ultimate endsMany consider Herman Daly to be a heterodox and even heretic economist. He associates himself with ecological economics, the field he co-founded. But while some of his ideas seem radical, many of his core proposals do not deviate substantially from mainstream economics. For instance, his “ultimate ends” concept is perfectly consistent with the broad notion of “welfare” in standard economics. In line with this, many welfare economists—such as Samuelson (1961), Mishan (1967), Hirsch (1976), Sen (1976), Scitovsky (1976) and Frank (1985)—have expressed themselves as critical of GDP (gross domestic product) dominance and growthmania (van den Bergh 2009). In fact, neoclassical economics is not married to economic growth—this is more the empirical side of macroeconomics. While Daly recognizes these subtleties, some of his followers do not.Daly sees his Protestant religion as delivering the ultimate ends, but Victor notes that this has not led to concrete suggestions. Ultimate ends based in Christian religion may be motivated by the promise of eternal (after)life, which in effect means gratifying selfish preferences. Instead, a humanistic perspective—which Daly also seems to embrace—would stress solidarity with future generations and a bioethical view of solidarity with other species. These distinct viewpoints, combined with diversity of human preferences and experiences, suggest that it will be difficult if not impossible for democratic societies to agree upon ultimate means.The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), a kind of greened or sustainable GDP metric, is Daly’s most concrete elaboration of ultimate means (Daly and Cobb 1989). For many OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, it indicates a stabilization of welfare, despite continued GDP growth (Lawn 2003; Posner and Costanza 2011). As clarified by Victor, The ISEW remains close to GDP, produces a monetary measure, has a simple and transparent calculation method, and received considerably attention from theoretical and empirical angles. In view of this, it may well represent the best candidate for a beyond-GDP metric that can replace the GDP. What urgently fails is an effective institutional procedure to achieve its widespread adoption (van den Bergh 2022).Religion, evolution and biodiversityDaly’s religious standpoint make him skeptical of the modern scientific worldview which regards the world to be governed by materialism and evolution, with no role for a higher purpose or an ultimate end. This led him... (shrink)

Bullying is one of the most impactful deviant actions that affects workers' personal health and work experience. Bullying is a quite distinctive deviant behavior as targets are subjected to transgressions that could last for months or longer. Even though a number of actions can be taken to resolve bullying between all parties, from the viewpoint of the target it is hard to resolve the situation. As a result, hierarchical influence may be necessary to prevent bullying in the first place. A (...) possible solution, therefore, is focusing on how leaders can impact the bullying behavior. This research argued and showed that ethical leadership is negatively associated with being bullied through tackling one of its most important antecedents of bullying: the design of the work environment. That is, ethical leaders could be shown to improve employees' workload (quantitative work environment) and poor working conditions (qualitative work environment), which was related to decreased bullying. (shrink)

In computer ethics, as in other branches of applied ethics, the problem of the justification of moral judgment is still unresolved. I argue that the method which is referred to as “The Method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium” (WRE) offers the best solution to it. It does not fall victim to the false dilemma of having to choose either case‐based particularist or principle‐based universalist approaches to the problem of moral justification. I claim that WRE also provides the best model of practical (...) moral reasoning available for computer ethics. It does not pretend to provide quasi‐algorithmic procedures for moral decision‐making, but neither does it abandon the regulative ideal of communicative transparency in discursive public justification. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted in society, creating numerous opportunities but at the same time posing ethical challenges. Many of these are familiar, such as issues of fairness, responsibility and privacy, but are presented in a new and challenging guise due to our limited ability to steer and predict the outputs of AI systems. This chapter first introduces these ethical challenges, stressing that overviews of values are a good starting point but frequently fail to suffice due to the context (...) sensitivity of ethical challenges. Frequently, additional (ethical) values emerge for specific applications, as e.g. challenges with fraud detection are very different from those around language technologies. Second, methods to tackle these challenges are discussed. Main ethical theories (virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) are shown to provide a starting point, but often lack the details needed for actionable AI Ethics. Instead, mid-level philosophical theories coupled to design-approaches such as Design for Values, together with interdisciplinary working methods, offer the best way forwards. The chapter aims to show how these approaches can lead to an ethics of AI that is actionable and that can be proactively integrated in the design of AI systems. (shrink)

The current study explores how the cultural distance of ethnic outgroups relative to the ethnic ingroup is related to stereotypical news representations. It does so by drawing on a sample of more than three million Dutch newspaper articles and uses advanced methods of automated content analysis, namely word embeddings. The results show that distant ethnic outgroup members (i. e., Moroccans) are associated with negative characteristics and issues, while this is not the case for close ethnic outgroup members (i. e., Belgians). (...) The current study demonstrates the usefulness of word embeddings as a tool to study subtle aspects of ethnic bias in mass-mediated content. (shrink)

Les décisions politiques sur les risques environnementaux complexes font fréquemment intervenir des éléments scientifiques contestés. Il n’y a généralement pas de « faits » qui conduisent à une politique correcte unique. Les éléments de preuve qui sont intégrés dans les avis scientifiques destinés à une décision politique nécessitent une évaluation de leur qualité. En 2003, l’Agence néerlandaise d’évaluation environnementale a adopté une méthode standardisée, désignée sous le nom de « guide », dans le cadre de laquelle les principaux aspects de (...) la production et de l’utilisation des connaissances sont présentés grâce à une liste de contrôle visant à l’évaluation et à la communication des incertitudes. Dans cet article, nous présentons des résultats de l’application de ce guide à la controverse sur les risques des particules en suspension. La délibération active sur l’incertitude dans un contexte d’expertise entraîne un processus d’apprentissage commun entre les experts et les décideurs politiques, ce qui conduit à une meilleure prise de conscience du phénomène d’incertitude et de ses implications politiques.Policy decisions on complex environmental risks often involve disputed science. Typically, there are no “ facts” to support a single unequivocally correct policy. The evidence provided in scientific studies for policy-making decisions requires high-quality assessment. In 2003, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency adopted a standardized method, referred to as “guidelines”, whereby key quality aspects of knowledge production and use are presented in the form of a checklist for uncertainty assessments and communication. In this article, we present the outcomes of applying the guidelines in controversies on the risks of ambient particulate matter. In the policy–advisory context, active deliberation on uncertainty produces a common learning process for advisors and policy makers, which leads to a deeper understanding and increased awareness of the phenomenon of uncertainty and its policy implications. (shrink)

The meaning of sustainability is the subject of intense debate among environmental and resource economists. Perhaps no other issue separates more clearly the traditional economic view from the views of most natural scientists. The debate currently focuses on the substitutability between the economy and the environment or between “natural capital” and “manufactured capital”—a debate captured in terms of weak versus strong sustainability. In this article, we examine the various interpretations of these concepts. We conclude that natural science and economic perspectives (...) on sustainability are inconsistent. The market-based Hartwick-Solow “weak sustainability” approach is far removed from both the ecosystem-based “Holling sustainability” and the “strong sustainability” approach of Daly and others. Each of these sustainability criteria implies a specific valuation approach, and thus an ethical position, to support monetary indicators of sustainability such as a green or sustainable Gross Domestic Product. The conflict between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability” is more evident in the context of centralized than decentralized decision making. In particular, firms selling “services” instead of material goods and regarding the latter as “capital” leads to decisions more or less consistent with either type of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the implications of global sustainability for such open systems as regions and countries. Open systems have not been dealt with systematically for any of the sustainability criteria. (shrink)

Contrary to economics or history, for example, there does not exist an organized field dedicated to the philosophy of political science. Given that the philosophical issues raised by political science research are just as pressing and vibrant as those raised in these more organized fields, fostering a field that labels itself Philosophy of Political Science (PoPS) is important. PoPS is advanced here as a fruitful meeting place where both philosophers and practicing political scientists contribute and discuss—with philosophical discussions that are (...) close to and informed by actual developments in political science, making philosophy of science continuous with the sciences in line with contemporary naturalist philosophy of science. The topics scrutinized in the different chapters of the Handbook will figure prominently in PoPS, as we lay out in this chapter. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

In projects concerning big data, ethical questions need to be answered during the design process. In this paper the Value Sensitive Design method is applied in the context of data-driven health services aimed at disease prevention. It shows how Value Sensitive Design, with the use of a moral dialogue and an ethical matrix, can support the identification and operationalization of moral values that are at stake in the design of such services. It also shows that using this method can support (...) meeting the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation. (shrink)