There are three questions associated with Simpson’s Paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP?, and (iii) What should be done about SP? By developing a logic-based account of SP, it is argued that (i) and (ii) must be divorced from (iii). This account shows that (i) and (ii) have nothing to do with causality, which plays a role only in addressing (iii). A counterexample is also presented against the causal account. Finally, the causal (...) and logic-based approaches are compared by means of an experiment to show that SP is not basically causal. (shrink)

There are three questions associated with Simpson’s paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP? and (iii) How to proceed when confronted with SP? An adequate analysis of the paradox starts by distinguishing these three questions. Then, by developing a formal account of SP, and substantiating it with a counterexample to causal accounts, we argue that there are no causal factors at play in answering questions (i) and (ii). Causality enters only in connection (...) with action. (shrink)

There are three distinct questions associated with Simpson's paradox, (i) Why or in what sense is Simpson's paradox a paradox? (ii) What is the proper analysis of the paradox? (iii) How one should proceed when confronted with a typical case of the paradox? We propose a "formar" answer to the first two questions which, among other things, includes deductive proofs for important theorems regarding Simpson's paradox. Our account contrasts sharply with Pearl's causal (and questionable) (...) account of the first two questions. We argue that the "how to proceed question?" does not have a unique response, and that it depends on the context of the problem. We evaluate an objection to our account by comparing ours with Blyth's account of the paradox. Our research on the paradox suggests that the "how to proceed question" needs to be divorced from what makes Simpson's paradox "paradoxical.". (shrink)

There are three distinct questions associated with Simpson’s paradox. Why or in what sense is Simpson’s paradox a paradox? What is the proper analysis of the paradox? How one should proceed when confronted with a typical case of the paradox? We propose a “formal” answer to the first two questions which, among other things, includes deductive proofs for important theorems regarding Simpson’s paradox. Our account contrasts sharply with Pearl’s causal account of (...) the first two questions. We argue that the “how to proceed question?” does not have a unique response, and that it depends on the context of the problem. We evaluate an objection to our account by comparing ours with Blyth’s account of the paradox. Our research on the paradox suggests that the “how to proceed question” needs to be divorced from what makes Simpson’s paradox “paradoxical.”. (shrink)

We address the need for a model by considering two competing theories regarding the origin of life: (i) the Metabolism First theory, and (ii) the RNA World theory. We discuss two interrelated points, namely: (i) Models are valuable tools for understanding both the processes and intricacies of origin-of-life issues, and (ii) Insights from models also help us to evaluate the core objection to origin-of-life theories, called “the inefficiency objection”, which is commonly raised by proponents of both the Metabolism First theory (...) and the RNA World theory against each other. We use Simpson’s Paradox (SP) as a tool for challenging this objection. We will use models in various senses, ranging from taking them as representations of reality to treating them as theories/accounts that provide heuristics for probing reality. In this paper, we will frequently use models and theories interchangeably. Additionally, we investigate Conway’s Game of Life and contrast it with our SP-based approach to emergence-of-life issues. Finally, we discuss some of the consequences of our view. A scientific model is testable in three senses: (i) a logical sense, (ii) a nomological sense, and (iii) a current technological sense. The SP-based model is testable in the first two senses but it is not feasible to test it using current technology. (shrink)

One unique part of Rousseau's Social Contract is his argument that a just society must have a specific constitutional arrangement of powers centred around what he calls the Sovereign and the Prince. This makes his philosophy different from other contractualists, such as Hobbes and Locke, who think that the principles of good government are compatible with any number of institutional structures. Rousseau's constitutional theory is thus significant in a way that has no parallel in Hobbes or Locke. More to the (...) point, any problems that exist in his constitutional theory will have consequences for his political thought as a whole. This article argues that there is a contradiction at the center of Rousseau's theory of institutions that threatens the cogency of the Social Contract. Key Words: Rousseau • separation of powers • social contract • sovereignty. (shrink)

Simpson's Paradox is introduced and analysed via the mishaps of a researcher who at first falls afoul of the traps Simpson-reversals can set, and then he learns to exploit those traps to advantage. (Note: An error in the treatment of the Sure Thing Principle is corrected in "Simpson's Paradox: A Logically Benign, Empirically Treacherous Hydra").

This article examines Simpson's paradox as applied to the theory of probabilites and percentages. The author discusses possible flaws in the paradox and compares it to the Sure Thing Principle, statistical inference, causal inference and probabilistic analyses of causation.

In this chapter I argue that emerging soldier enhancement technologies have the potential to transform the ethical character of the relationship between combatants, in conflicts between ‘Superpower’ militaries, with the ability to deploy such technologies, and technologically disadvantaged ‘Underdog’ militaries. The reasons for this relate to Paul Kahn’s claims about the paradox of riskless warfare. When an Underdog poses no threat to a Superpower, the standard just war theoretic justifications for the Superpower’s combatants using lethal violence against their opponents (...) breaks down. Therefore, Kahn argues, combatants in that position must approach their opponents in an ethical guise relevantly similar to ‘policing’. I argue that the kind of disparities in risk and threat between opposing combatants that Kahn’s analysis posits, don’t obtain in the context of face-to-face combat, in the way they would need to in order to support his ethical conclusions about policing. But then I argue that soldier enhancement technologies have the potential to change this, in a way that reactivates the force of those conclusions. (shrink)

Adam Smith is perceived, through his best-known book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, as the founder of economics as a science. His thought has shaped modern ideas about the market economy and the role of the state in relation to it. Yet Smith needs to be recognized as more than this, as a man of letters, moralist, historian, and critic, as well as an economist, if we are to get full value for his (...) ideas and perspectives in contemporary applications. Ian Simpson Ross is the biographer of Lord Kames, Smith's patron, and of the Scottish poet William Dunbar, and has edited, with E C Mossner, Smith's correspondence for the Glasgow edition of his works. In this, the first full-scale biography of Adam Smith for a hundred years, Ross brings his subject in to historical light as a thinker and author by examining his family circumstance, education, career, and social and intellectual circle, including David Hume and Francois Quesnay, revealed through his correspondence, archival documents, the reports of contemporaries, and the record of his publications. Readers will meet Smith as a student at a lively Glasgow and sleepy Oxford; freelance lecturer in rhetoric; innovative university teacher; tutor travelling abroad with a Duke; acclaimed political economist; policy advisor to governments during and after the American crisis; and finally, if paradoxically in view of his tenets, a Commissioner of Customs coping with the free traders in the smuggling business. This is the life of a Scottish moral philosopher whose legacy of thought concerns and affects us all. Its lively and informed account will appeal to those interested in the social and intellectual milieu of the eighteenth century, and in scottish history. Economists and philosophers will find much to read about the history of their disciplines, supported by full documentation. (shrink)

In Nietzsche’s later work the problem of the possibility of philosophy presents a significant interpretative and practical dilemma. Nietzsche attempts to undermine the idea of the absolute, as a source of value, meaning and truth, and to tease out the traces of this idea in our philosophising. He is thus one of those who has given us the means to complete the Kantian project of moving beyond metaphysical realism and a representational understanding of meaning. However, along with the gift comes (...) a paradox. For Nietzsche’s diagnosis seems to make it clear that desire for the absolute is intrinsic to the practice of philosophy – that in important respects, philosophy just is the (hopeless) attempt to frame or discover overarching, context-less objectivity. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s analysis of philosophy is accompanied by a recognition and critique of the nihilism that arises in reaction to the collapse of absolutism. I suggest that we can find (in Nietzsche) a resolution of this paradox that involves the continuation of philosophy, not through a consciousness for philosophy, but through understanding philosophy as a process without a subject. That is, understanding philosophy as a practice that does not involve a moment that is the resolution of the paradox at all, but which is a process, involving the continual crisis of its paradox (which we might see as a constitutive paradox). (shrink)

It is shown that the Fisher smoking problem and Newcomb's problem are decisiontheoretically identical, each having at its core an identical case of Simpson's paradox for certain probabilities. From this perspective, incorrect solutions to these problems arise from treating them as cases of decisionmaking under risk, while adopting certain global empirical conditional probabilities as the relevant subjective probabihties. The most natural correct solutions employ the methodology of decisionmaking under uncertainty with lottery acts, with certain local empirical conditional probabilities adopted (...) as the relevant subjective probabilities. (shrink)

It is shown that the Fisher smoking problem and Newcomb's problem are decisiontheoretically identical, each having at its core an identical case of Simpson's paradox for certain probabilities. From this perspective, incorrect solutions to these problems arise from treating them as cases of decisionmaking under risk, while adopting certain global empirical conditional probabilities as the relevant subjective probabihties. The most natural correct solutions employ the methodology of decisionmaking under uncertainty with lottery acts, with certain local empirical conditional probabilities adopted (...) as the relevant subjective probabilities. (shrink)

This paper discusses Simpson's paradox and the problem of positive relevance in probabilistic causality. It is argued that Cartwright's solution to Simpson's paradox fails because it ignores one crucial form of the paradox. After clarifying different forms of the paradox, it is shown that any adequate solution to the paradox must allow a cause to be both a negative cause and a positive cause of..

Here is a simplified fiction which is based on a real case at a Californian University. The Faculty of Humanities decided to try to increase the number of women on their staff. There were 13 women and 13 men who applied for positions in the Faculty. All the positions were directed towards the study of either time or space, in the departments of History or Geography. There were 13 applicants for the positions in History and 13 applicants for the positions (...) in Geography. Of the women applicants 8 applied for positions in History, and 5 for Geography, whereas 5 of the men applied for positions in History and 8 in Geography. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I review some recent treatments of Simpson's Paradox, and I propose a new rationalizing explanation of its paradoxicality.

Numerous papers have investigated the transitivity principle of ‘better-than.’ A recent argument appeals to the principle of mereological dominance for transitivity. However, writers have not treated mereological dominance in much detail. This paper sets out to evaluate the generality of mereological dominance and its effectiveness in supporting the transitivity principle. I found that the mereological dominance principle is vulnerable to a counterexample based on Simpson’s Paradox. The thesis concludes that the mereological dominance principle should be revised in certain (...) ways. (shrink)

Richard Otte (1985) has recently criticized the resolution of Simpson's paradox given by Nancy Cartwright (1979). He argues that there are difficulties with the version of the theory of probabilistic causality that Cartwright has developed, and that there is a way in which Simpson's paradox can arise that Cartwright's theory cannot handle. And Otte develops his own theory of probabilistic causality. I defend Cartwright's solution, and I argue that there are difficulties with the theory of probabilistic causality that (...) Otte proposes. (shrink)

This paper argues for a claim made by Maria Carla Galavotti that the use of indeterministic causality involves one in Simpson's paradox. It is shown specifically that a consideration of Hesslow's well-known counter-example leads to Simpson's paradox.

We propose an alternative resolution of Simpson's paradox in multiple classification experiments, using a different maximum likelihood estimator. In the center of our analysis is a formal representation of free choice and randomization that is based on the notion of incompatible measurements.We first introduce a representation of incompatible measurements as a collection of sets of outcomes. This leads to a natural generalization of Kolmogoroff's axioms of probability. We then discuss the existence and uniqueness of the maximum likelihood estimator for (...) a probability weight on such a generalized sample space, given absolute frequency data.As a first example, we discuss an estimation problem with censured data that classically admits only biased ad hoc estimators.Next, we derive an explicit solution of the maximum likelihood estimation problem for a large class of experiments that arise from various kids of compositions of sample spaces. We identify the (categorical) direct sum of sample spaces as a representation of “free choice,” and the (categorical) direct product as a representation of “randomization.”Finally, we apply the foregoing discussion to the case of multiple classification experiments in order to show that there is no Simpson's paradox if the difference between free choice and randomization is recognized in the structure of the experiment.A comparison between our new estimator and the “usual” calculation can be summarized as follows: Pooling the data over one classification factor in the “usual” way in fact destroys or ignores the information contained in it, whereas our proposed maximum likelihood estimator is a proper marginal over this factor that “averages out” the information contained in it. The estimators agree with each other in the case of proportional sample sizes. (shrink)

We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formalsanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

The Sentimental Life of International Law is about our age-old longing for a decent international society and the ways of seeing, being, and speaking that might help us achieve that aim. This book asks how international lawyers might engage in a professional practice that has become, to adapt a title of Janet Malcolm's, both difficult and impossible. It suggests that international lawyers are disabled by the governing idioms of international lawyering, and proposes that they may be re-enabled by speaking different (...) sorts of international law, or by speaking international law in different sorts of ways. In this methodologically diverse and unusually personal account, Gerry Simpson brings to the surface international law's hidden literary prose and offers a critical and redemptive account of the field. He does so in a series of chapters on international law's bathetic underpinnings, its friendly relations, the neurotic foundations of its underlying social order, its screened-off comic dispositions, its anti-method, and the life-worlds of its practitioners. Finally, the book closes with a chapter in which international law is re-envisioned through the practice of gardening. All of this is put forward as a contribution to the project of making international law, again, a compelling language for our times. (shrink)

This book aims to develop the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical account of interpretive (as opposed to explanatory) understanding--the account of meanings and contexts rather than causes and predictions--usually restricted to the domain of literary and textual analysis, in new directions by exploiting its potential as an instrument of critique. It refutes commonly held claims that hermeneutic analyses are necessarily relativistic, Eurocentric, or critically impotent and demonstrates how hermeneutic procedures can inform analyses of urgent current and cross-cultural issues such (...) as the biology of race, female genital excision, and the so-called "culture of poverty" thesis. Lorenzo Simpson demonstrates that a robust methodology of philosophical hermeneutics is well positioned to intervene in critical political and social issues in global ethics and justice in concert with critical theory's emancipatory aims. (shrink)

We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formalsanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formalsanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

Few debates in environmental philosophy have been more heated than the one over the nature of wilderness. And yet, when one surveys the present scene, one finds that a variety of different conceptions of wilderness are still quite popular – some more so in certain professions than others. In this paper, I look at three popular conceptions of wilderness with an eye toward sussing out the good and the bad them. I look at what I call (1) the folk view (...) of wilderness, (2) Leopold’s conception of wilderness, and (3) the legal conception of wilderness (as found in the Wilderness Act of 1964). In the final part of the paper, I sketch out a sort of spectrum account of wilderness, one that I argue allows us to capture more cases of wilderness and might serve as a useful tool in future conservation efforts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formal sanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

The story of The Expanse is inseparable from the Inners’ oppression of the Belters. This chapter focuses on the relationship between the Inners and the Belt. It provides insight into the colonial relationship between them. Emphasizing the colonial relationship between the Inners and the Belt gives us insight into why attempts to forge a peaceful alliance between Earth, Mars, and the Belt fail time and time again. If we understand the Belt's attack as transcending mere bloodthirst and demolishing the unquestioned (...) colonial system that denies their very humanity, the case for anti‐colonial violence becomes much more compelling. Marco's vision of the future, in which Earth and Mars keep to their planets and a self‐determining Belt can finally live free of persecution, is juxtaposed against Avasarala's vision of peace in Luna Station. (shrink)

Moral expressivists think that moral thoughts and sentences don’t represent or describe the world, at least not in any interesting sense. Global expressivists think that _no_ thoughts or sentences represent the world; local expressivists think that some do and others don’t. Huw Price has influentially argued that local expressivism collapses into global expressivism, due both to the effects of minimalist theories of representation and similar concepts, and to an unappreciated consequence of the success of specific expressivist theories like moral expressivism. (...) In this paper I argue that Price’s arguments don’t succeed. While they can be fixed, doing so makes them miss their intended target. Local expressivists should therefore not be worried by Price’s arguments. (shrink)

Medieval interpretations of hylomorphism, in which substances are conceived as metaphysical composites of prime matter and substantial form, are receiving attention in contemporary philosophy. It has even been suggested that a recovery of Aquinas's conception of prime matter as a ‘pure potentiality’, lacking any actuality apart from substantial form, may be expedient in hylomorphic interpretations of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we consider a recent hylomorphic interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the theory of Cosmic Hylomorphism, which does not explicitly invoke (...) any notion of prime matter in its original formulation. We argue that prime matter does in fact play a role in constituting and individuating particles in this theory. However, we demonstrate that the notion of prime matter which features in the extended version of Cosmic Hylomorphism that we propose here is distinct from Aquinas's conception of prime matter, inasmuch as it has discrete metaphysical parts. (shrink)

An overview and introduction to the background and origins of the different texts, beliefs, and practices that form yoga historically and today.