It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on the (...) offered odds. And even apart from this consideration, assigning probabilities to the options among which one is choosing is futile since such probabilities could be of no possible use in choice. The paper subjects these arguments to critical examination and suggests that, appearances notwithstanding, practical deliberation need not crowd outself-prediction. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is a lack of empirical research regarding the outcomes of such clinical ethics support methods as moral case deliberation (MCD). Empirical research in how healthcare professionals perceive potential outcomes is needed in order to evaluate the value and effectiveness of ethics support; and help to design future outcomes research. The aim was to use the European Moral Case Deliberation Outcome Instrument (Euro-MCD) instrument to examine the importance of various MCD outcomes, according to healthcare professionals, prior to participation.MethodsA (...) North European field survey among healthcare professionals drawn from 73 workplaces in a variety of healthcare settings in the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Euro-MCD instrument was used.ResultsAll outcomes regarding the domains of moral reflexivity, moral attitude, emotional support, collaboration, impact at organisational level and concrete results, were perceived as very or quite important by 76%–97% of the 703 respondents. Outcomes regarding collaboration and concrete results were perceived as most important. Outcomes assessed as least important were mostly about moral attitude. ‘Better interactions with patient/family’ emerged as a new domain from the qualitative analysis. Dutch respondents perceived most of the outcomes as significantly less important than the Scandinavians, especially regarding emotional support. Furthermore, men, those who were younger, and physician-respondents scored most of the outcomes as statistically significantly less important compared with the other respondents.ConclusionsThe findings indicate a need for a broad instrument such as the Euro-MCD. Outcomes related to better interactions between professionals and patients must also be included in the future. The empirical findings raise the normative question of whether outcomes that were perceived as less important, such asmoralreflexivity andmoralattitude outcomes, should still be included. In the future, a combination of empirical findings (practice) and normative reflection (theories) will contribute to the revision of the instrument. (shrink)

Deliberative analysis enables us to weigh features, simulate futures, and arrive at good, tractable decisions. So why do we so often eschew deliberation, and instead rely on more intuitive, gut responses? We propose that intuition might be prescribed for some decisions because people’s folk theory of decision-making accords a special role to authenticity, which is associated with intuitive choice. Five pre-registered experiments find evidence in favor of this claim. In Experiment 1 (N = 654), we show that participants prescribe (...) intuition and deliberation as a basis for decisions differentially across domains, and that these prescriptions predict reported choice. In Experiment 2 (N = 555), we find that choosing intuitively vs. deliberately leads to different inferences concerning the decision-maker’s commitment and authenticity—with only inferences about the decision-maker’s authenticity showing variation across domains that matches that observed for the prescription of intuition in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 (N = 631), we replicate our prior results and rule out plausible confounds. Finally, in Experiment 4 (N = 177) and Experiment 5 (N = 526), we find that an experimental manipulation of the importance of authenticity affects the prescribed role for intuition as well as the endorsement of expert human or algorithmic advice. These effects hold beyond previously recognized influences on intuitive vs. deliberative choice, such as computational costs, presumed reliability, objectivity, complexity, and expertise. (shrink)

In healthcare practice, care providers are confronted with decisions they have to make, directly affecting patients and inevitably harmful. These decisions are tragic by nature. This study investigates the role of Moral Case Deliberation in dealing with tragic situations. In MCD, caregivers reflect on real-life dilemmas, involving a choice between two ethical claims, both resulting in moral damage and harm. One element of the reflection process is making explicit the harm involved in the choice. How harmful are our decisions? (...) We investigated how facilitators of MCD experience the importance of addressing harm in MCD and what participants learn from reflecting on harm. The study was qualitative, focusing on the views and experiences of the facilitators of MCD. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with facilitators of MCD. The research focuses on the subjective experiences of facilitators. Grounded Theory was used for analysis. The results show two main categories. The first concerns the awareness of tragedy. Within this category, five themes were discerned: making explicit that there is no solution, visualizing consequences, uncovering pain, focusing on emotion, and exploring perspectives on harm. The second category concerns the support for healthcare professionals in dealing with the tragedy of the choices they face. In this category, five themes came forward: acknowledging, offering comfort, managing harm, consideration through dialogue and repairing harm. Our study shows that addressing harm in MCD in tragic situations provides an important moral learning opportunity for participants. By formulating and becoming aware of harm, MCD aids healthcare professionals in the task they are faced with, namely making difficult and painful choices. MCD helps healthcare professionals to repair moral damage, making clear at the same time that harm cannot be undone. (shrink)

Contemporary Anglo-American political thought is witnessing a revival of theories of deliberative democracy. The principle of public argumentation, according to which the legitimation of a general norm is predicated upon a rational and open dialog among all those affected by this norm, constitutes their common underlying assumption. This assumption is itself grounded in the metatheoretical claim that arguing is the defining activity of a demos of free and equal members. Habermas' well-known formulation of communicative or discursive democracy represents one of (...) the earliest, most discussed, and indeed most emblematic versions of the existing models of deliberative democracy. It is here, I believe, that Castoriadis' political theory can prove exceptionally important as it provides a starting point and a solid ground for articulating one of the most incisive and convincing critiques of the limits and flaws of communicative democracy. Although Castoriadis himself never directly discussed deliberative democracy as such, we can try to approximate from various parts of his work what he might have thought about, especially when it comes to Habermas' model. (shrink)

Online deliberation is one important instance of civic tech that is both for and by the citizens, through engaging citizens in Internet-supported deliberative discussions on public issues. This article explains the origins of a set of symposium articles in this journal issue based on the 2017 'International Conference on Deliberation and Decision Making: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Civic Tech' held in Singapore. Symposium articles are presented in a sequence that flows from designing decision making systems to platforms to specific (...) technological nudges. (shrink)

Using data from a randomized field experiment within a Deliberative Poll, this paper examines deliberation’s effects on both policy attitudes and the extent to which ordinal rankings of policy options approach single-peakedness (a help in avoiding cyclical majorities). The setting was New Haven, Connecticut, and its surrounding towns; the issues were airport expansion and revenue sharing – the former highly salient, the latter not at all. Half the participants deliberated revenue sharing, then the airport; the other half the reverse. (...) This split-half design helps distinguish the effects of the formal on-site deliberations from those of other aspects of the treatment. As expected, the highly salient airport issue saw only a slight effect, while much less salient revenue-sharing issue saw a much larger one. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, Islamic scholars and medical experts have used the tools of Islamic law to formulate ethico-legal opinions on brain death. These assessments have varied in their determinations and remain controversial. Some juridical councils such as the Organization of Islamic Conferences' Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC-IFA) equate brain death with cardiopulmonary death, while others such as the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences (IOMS) analogize brain death to an intermediate state between life and death. Still other councils have repudiated the notion (...) entirely. Similarly, the ethico-legal assessments are not uniform in their acceptance of brain-stem or whole-brain criteria for death, and consequently their conceptualizations of, brain death. Within the medical literature, and in the statements of Muslim medical professional societies, brain death has been viewed as sanctioned by Islamic law with experts citing the aforementioned rulings. Furthermore, health policies around organ transplantation and end-of-life care within the Muslim world have been crafted with consideration of these representative religious determinations made by transnational, legally-inclusive, and multidisciplinary councils. The determinations of these councils also have bearing upon Muslim clinicians and patients who encounter the challenges of brain death at the bedside. For those searching for ‘Islamically-sanctioned’ responses that can inform their practice, both the OIC-IFA and IOMS verdicts have palpable gaps in their assessments and remain clinically ambiguous. In this paper we analyze these verdicts from the perspective of applied Islamic bioethics and raise several questions that, if answered by future juridical councils, will better meet the needs of clinicians and bioethicists. (shrink)

Public engagement in ethically laden pandemic planning decisions may be important for transparency, creating public trust, improving compliance with public health orders, and ultimately, contributing to just outcomes. We conducted focus groups with members of the public to characterize public perceptions about social distancing measures likely to be implemented during a pandemic. Participants expressed concerns about job security and economic strain on families if businesses or school closures are prolonged. They shared opposition to closure of religious organizations, citing the need (...) for shared support and worship during times of crises. Group discussions elicited evidence of community-mindedness, while some also acknowledged strong self-interest. Participants conveyed desire for opportunities for public input and education, and articulated distrust of government. Social distancing measures may be challenging to implement and sustain due to strains on family resources and lack of trust in government. (shrink)

Theoretical and practical deliberation are voluntary activities, and like all voluntary activities, they are performed for reasons. To hold that all voluntary activities are performed for reasons in virtue of their relations to past, present, or even merely possible acts of deliberation thus leads to infinite regresses and related problems. As a consequence, there must be processes that are nondeliberative and nonvoluntary but that nonetheless allow us to think and act for reasons, and these processes must be the (...) ones that generate the voluntary activities making up ordinary deliberation. These nondeliberative, nonvoluntary processes by means of which we are able to deliberate for reasons are the fundamental processes by means of which we can think or do anything for a reason: once it has been seen that they must exist, it can be recognized that they are ubiquitous. As a result, the usefulness of deliberation to rational belief and action is intermittent, contingent, and modest. Deliberation is a tremendously valuable tool for increasing human capacities to think and act for good reasons in challenging contexts, but in the end it is merely a tool, wielded by people through the same nondeliberative, nonvoluntary capacities to think and act for reasons that they are enhancing the effectiveness of by deliberating. (shrink)

Psychologists, economists, historians, computer scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and legal scholars discuss when is deliberate ignorance a virtue, and what type of environment does it require.

Is it possible to look at schools as spaces for encounters? Could schools contribute to a deliberative mode of communication in a manner better suited to our own time and to areas where different cultures meet? Inspired primarily by classical (Dewey) and modern (Habermas) pragmatists, I turn to Seyla Benhabib, posing the question whether she supports the proposition that schools can be sites for deliberative communication. I argue that a school that engages in deliberative communication, with its stress on mutual (...) communication between different moral perspectives, gives universalism a procedurally oriented meaning, serving as an arena for encounters that represents a weak public sphere. An interactive universalism of this kind attaches importance to developing an ability and willingness to reason on the basis of the views of others and to change perspectives. In that respect, the institutional arrangements of schools are potential parts of the political dimension of cosmopolitanism, as well as its moral dimension, in terms of the obligations and responsibilities we develop through our institutions and in our actions as human beings towards one another. (shrink)

What ethical challenges do internal auditors (IAs) encounter in their professional role, and how do they navigate these hurdles, especially when weaving risks into their ethical judgments? Anchored in philosophical concepts distinguishing norms from values, and the notion that risk is intrinsically moral, this research delves into interviews of 33 Canadian public sector IAs across various government strata. This primary data are enriched by insights from archival documents and an ethics training session attended by 11 internal audit executives. Our analysis (...) reveals two primary ethical challenges faced by IAs—ethical issues and dilemmas—which unfold in the various contexts we explicate in this study. To address them, IAs tend to favor axiological logic (values driven) over deontological logic (norms driven). However, in some situations, a prudential logic centered on risk becomes their touchstone. Our key takeaways are threefold: (1) a highlight of the ethical quandaries IAs grapple with; (2) evidence that prudential logic, with its merits and flaws, is used to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between professional norms and individual values; and (3) an emphasis on the weak reliance of IAs on the Institute of Internal Auditors Code of Ethics, hinting at avenues for its enhanced outreach and pedagogy. (shrink)

Jehovah's Witnesses' (JWs) refusal of blood transfusions has recently gained support in the medical community because of the growing popularity of "no-blood" treatment. Many physicians, particularly so-called "sympathetic doctors", are establishing a close relationship with this religious organization. On the other hand, it is little known that this blood doctrine is being strongly criticized by reform-minded current and former JWs who have expressed conscientious dissent from the organization. Their arguments reveal religious practices that conflict with many physicians' moral standards. They (...) also suggest that a certain segment of "regular" or orthodox JWs may have different attitudes towards the blood doctrine. The author considers these viewpoints and argues that there are ethical flaws in the blood doctrine, and that the medical community should reconsider its supportive position. The usual physician assumption that JWs are acting autonomously and uniformly in refusing blood is seriously questioned. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 42-44.

By deliberation we understand practical reasoning with an end in view of choosing some course of action. Integral to it is the agent's sense of alternative possibilities, that is, of two or more courses of action he presumes are open for him to undertake or not. Such acts may not actually be open in the sense that the deliberator would do them were he to so intend, but it is evident that he assumes each to be so. One deliberates (...) only by taking it for granted that both performing and refraining from any of the acts under consideration are possible for one, and that which is to be selected is something entirely up to oneself. What is it for a course of action to be presumed as open, or for several courses of action to present themselves as a range of open alternatives? Answering these questions is essential for an understanding of deliberation and choice and, indeed, for the entire issue of free will and responsibility. According to one common view, a deliberator takes the considered options to be open only by assuming he is free to undertake any of them and, consequently, that whichever he does undertake is, as yet, a wholly undetermined matter. Built into the structure of deliberation, on this theory, is an indeterministic bias relative to which any deliberator with deterministic beliefs is either inconsistent or condemned to a fatalistic limbo. An unmistakable challenge is thereby posed: is there an alternative conception of the presuppositions underlying deliberation more congenial to a deterministic perspective yet adequate to the data? Convinced that there is, I develop a partial account of deliberation that, though highly similar to the aforementioned view, diverges at a critical juncture. (shrink)

La littérature philosophique sur le modèle de la démocratie déliberative insiste sur la qualité déliberative dont peuvent faire preuve les média. C’est seulement à cette condition que l’on peut avoir une sphère publique où une pluralité d’opinions peuvent émerger. Des recherches empiriques révèlent néanmoins que les média présentent la politique comme un jeu de divertissement avec des gagnants et des perdants, bien loin de l’idéal délibératif d’un échange réfléchi d’arguments. Étant donné la pression du marché sur les média, il est (...) difficile d’y remédier. L’espoir le plus grand se trouve dans de petites niches sophistiquées des débats en ligne. (shrink)

Judicial Deliberations compares how and why the European Court of Justice, the French Cour de cassation and the US Supreme Court offer different approaches for generating judicial accountability and control, judicial debate and deliberation, and ultimately judicial legitimacy. Examining the judicial argumentation of the United States Supreme Court and of the French Cour de cassation, the book first reorders the traditional comparative understanding of the difference between French civil law and American common law judicial decision-making. It then uses this (...) analysis to offer the first detailed comparative examination of the interpretive practice of the European Court of Justice. Lasser demonstrates that the French judicial system rests on a particularly unified institutional and ideological framework founded on explicitly republican notions of meritocracy and managerial expertise. Law-making per se may be limited to the legislature; but significant judicial normative administration is entrusted to State selected, trained, and sanctioned elites who are policed internally through hierarchical institutional structures. The American judicial system, by contrast, deploys a more participatory and democratic approach that reflects a more populist vision. Shunning the unifying, controlling, and hierarchical French structures, the American judicial system instead generates its legitimacy primarily by argumentative means. American judges engage in extensive debates that subject them to public scrutiny and control. The ECJ hovers delicately between the institutional/argumentative and republican/democratic extremes. On the one hand, the ECJ reproduces the hierarchical French discursive structure on which it was originally patterned. On the other, it transposes this structure into a transnational context of fractured political and legal assumptions. This drives the ECJ towards generating legitimacy by adopting a somewhat more transparent argumentative approach. (shrink)

John Dewey developed sophisticated theories for a liberal civil society and a deliberative democracy. These theories have recently enjoyed renewed attention, discussion, and practical application.1 However, no consensus on Dewey's primary theoretical strategies has yet emerged.2 What precisely was Dewey's justification for democracy and its superiority over other ways of life and forms of government? This essay explains how Dewey attempted to formulate a philosophical justification for democracy on ethical grounds, rather than just epistemic or satisfaction-maximization grounds alone. Provided with (...) a solid ethical foundation, progressive and participatory democracy could become a practical, achievable, and highly .. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have been praised as vehicles for tackling complex sustainability issues, but their success relies on the reconciliation of stakeholders’ divergent perspectives. We yet lack a thorough understanding of the micro-level mechanisms by which stakeholders can deal with these differences. To develop such understanding, we examine what frames—i.e., mental schemata for making sense of the world—members of MSIs use during their discussions on sustainability questions and how these frames are deliberated through social interactions. Whilst prior framing research has focussed (...) on between-frame conflicts, we offer a different perspective by examining how and under what conditions actors use shared frames to tackle ‘within-frame conflicts’ on views that stand in the way of joint decisions. Observations of a deliberative environmental valuation workshop and interviews in an MSI on the protection of peatlands—ecosystems that contribute to carbon retention on a global scale—demonstrated how the application and deliberation of shared frames during micro-level interactions resulted in increased salience, elaboration, and adjustment of shared frames. We interpret our findings to identify characteristics of deliberation mechanisms in the case of within-frame conflicts where shared frames dominate the discussions, and to delineate conditions for such dominance. Our findings contribute to an understanding of collaborations in MSIs and other organisational settings by demonstrating the utility of shared frames for dealing with conflicting views and suggesting how shared frames can be activated, fostered and strengthened. (shrink)

This paper reframes the futility debate, moving away from the question “Who decides when to end what is considered to be a medically inappropriate or futile treatment?” and toward the question “How can society make policy that will best account for the multitude of values and conflicts involved in such decision-making?” It offers a pragmatist moral epistemology that provides us with a clear justification of why it is important to take best standards, norms, and physician judgment seriously and a clear (...) justification of why ample opportunity must be made for patients, families, and society to challenge those standards and norms. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. In light of recent empirical evidence, however, some skeptics conclude that philosophers should stop assuming the principle unconditionally. Streumer, however, does not simply assume the principle’s truth; he provides arguments for it. In this article, we argue that his arguments fail to support the claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.

In this essay, first the pragma-dialectical theory of strategic maneuvering is explained. Then the focus is on the conventionalization of communicative practices in communicative activity types and the institutional constraints it imposes on strategic maneuvering. Thus, an adequate background is created for discussing, on the basis of several recent projects, pragma-dialectical research of argumentative discourse in the political domain.

The possibility of predetermined choices raises a challenge for Causal Decision Theory [Ahmed 2014b]. Sandgren and Williamson [2021] have recently proposed a response—Selective Causal Decision Theory—that they hope will avoid Ahmed’s counterexamples, maintain (a particular kind of) compatibilism, and endorse universal Two-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem—CDT’s raison d’être. Their proposal does an admirable job of satisfying the first two desiderata. However, in this reply I raise several worries about whether it can satisfy the third.

Scheinerman (2023) proposes that at the Human Genome Editing Initiative international summit (held in March 2023) there should have been a parallel, separate Citizens’ Jury, and that the Human Geno...

The question of how democracy can deal with cultural diversity has become more central than ever. The increasing flow of people to many Western democratic countries indicates that our societies will become more and more multicultural. But what is the best way for democracy to deal with cultural diversity? It has been argued that, given its communicative core, the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy provides a platform where cultural groups can concur on peaceful agreements. In this paper, I show the (...) limits of this model of democracy in relation to diverse cultural traditions to public interactions. I will discuss the case of societies and ethnic groups of a Confucian heritage and show that Habermas’ account of public deliberation is not a neutral method for facilitating political decision making, but is culturally biased. (shrink)

From their interpretation of the Australian Citizens’ Jury on genome editing, Scheinerman (2023) concludes that inclusive and diverse deliberative processes of public engagement have salient benefi...