Background:The management of challenging behaviours in inpatient with intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorders can lead to an escalation of control measures. In these complex situations where patients have an intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder accompanied by a psychiatric comorbidity, the experiences of caregivers related to the crisis management have rarely been studied.Purpose:This study examined the moral experiences of caregivers related to challenging behaviours’ management and alternatives to control measures.Research design:Using Charles Taylor’s hermeneutic framework, a 2-month focused ethnography with a participatory (...) approach was used.Participants and research context:Sixteen caregivers were interviewed in a Canadian mental health setting for adults with intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder and psychiatric comorbidity.Ethical considerations:The research was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and local Research Ethics Board approval. Written informed consent was collected systematically from participants.Findings:By accounting for caregivers’ moral experiences, this study sheds light on a neglected dimension of the care relationship: the vulnerability of the caregiver. We highlight the main barriers and facilitators to alternatives to control measures. First, a caregiver’s vulnerability was characterised by the overall impact of challenging behaviours and the moral distress associated with the use of control measures and exclusion mechanisms of intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder patients. Second, a strong ambiguity between care and control measures and a lack of inclusive approaches were identified as the two main barriers to challenging behaviour management. Third, the involvement, both professional and personal, of caregivers was deemed necessary to implement alternatives to control measures.Discussion:A conflict of values opposes two conceptions of autonomy: a rational autonomy, which is counterproductive to the reduction of control measures, versus a relational autonomy based on shared vulnerability.Conclusion:The recognition of caregiver’s vulnerability is a benchmark to create alternative approaches, which defuse the logic of control and promote an ethics of care within which caregivers’ self-concern can be understood as fostering mutual respect. (shrink)

I argue that prioritarianism cannot be assessed in abstraction from an account of the measure of utility. Rather, the soundness of this view crucially depends on what counts as a greater, lesser, or equal increase in a person’s utility. In particular, prioritarianism cannot accommodate a normatively compelling measure of utility that is captured by the axioms of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s expected utility theory. Nor can it accommodate a plausible and elegant generalization (...) of this theory that has been offered in response to challenges to von Neumann and Morgenstern. This is, I think, a theoretically interesting and unexpected source of difficulty for prioritarianism, which I explore in this article. (shrink)

This article is about the analogy between inclusive fitness and utility. In behavioral ecology, it is often assumed that individual organisms behave as if they were “striving” to maximize their inclusive fitness—a measure analogue to the kind of utility function that is used to represent the preferences of rational agents. Here, I explore some conceptual puzzles related to this view and question whether the kind of biological utility posited by the advocates of the “maximizing agent analogy” (...) can be adequately interpreted in inclusive fitness terms. (shrink)

Measures of epistemic utility are used by formal epistemologists to make determinations of epistemic betterness among cognitive states. The Brier rule is the most popular choice among formal epistemologists for such a measure. In this paper, however, we show that the Brier rule is sometimes seriously wrong about whether one cognitive state is epistemically better than another. In particular, there are cases where an agent gets evidence that definitively eliminates a false hypothesis, but where the Brier rule says (...) that things have become epistemically worse. Along the way to this ‘elimination experiment’ counter-example to the Brier rule as a measure of epistemic utility, we identify several useful monotonicity principles for epistemic betterness. We also reply to several potential objections to this counter-example. (shrink)

This long-awaited two-volume set constitutes the definitive presentation of the system of classifying moral judgment built up by Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates over a period of twenty years. Researchers in child development and education around the world, many of whom have worked with interim versions of the system, indeed, all those seriously interested in understanding the problem of moral judgment, will find it an indispensable resource. Volume I reviews Kohlberg's stage theory, and the by-now large body of research on (...) the significance and utility of his moral stages. Issues of reliability and validity are addressed. The volume ends with detailed instructions for using the forms in Volume 2. Volume 2, in a specially-designed, user-friendly format, includes three alternative functionally-equivalent forms of the scoring system. (shrink)

Research interest in topics such as happiness, the quality of life, and the experience of well-being has dramatically increased in the past four decades. Global measures of Subjective Well-Being have long held a prominent position in this burgeoning body of research. Despite their widespread acceptance and use, the validity and utility of global measures of SWB have been challenged at several levels of analysis. These critiques have ranged from the conceptual basis of SWB to very specific concerns about the (...) context of the assessment situation and the cognitive processes involved in formulating a response to such measures. The purpose of this paper is to review and address some of the more prominent critiques of global measures of SWB, and to discuss methodological procedures and strategies for minimizing threats to the validity and increasing the utility of global measures of SWB. (shrink)

Research using explicit measures has linked decreased positive future thinking, but not increased negative future thinking, with clinical depression. However, individuals may be unable or unwilling to express thoughts about the future, and can be unaware of implicit beliefs that can influence their behavior. Implicit measures of cognition may shed light on the role of future thinking in depression. To our knowledge, the current study presents the first implicit measure of positive and negative future thinking. A sample of 71 (...) volunteers completed both implicit and explicit measures of positive and negative future thinking. The findings indicate differences in the evaluation of both positive and negative future events between the two groups. However, group differences were more pronounced on the implicit measure. These findings point to the potential utility of an implicit measure of future thinking in mental health research and clinical practice. (shrink)

BackgroundThe merits and drawbacks of moral relevance models of addiction have predominantly been discussed theoretically, without empirical evidence of these potential effects. This study develops and evaluates a novel survey measure for assessing moral evaluations of patient substance misuse (ME-PSM).MethodsThis measure was tested on 524 health professionals (i.e., physicians, nurses, and other health professionals) in California (n = 173), urban France (n = 102), and urban China (n = 249). Demographic factors associated with ME-PSM were investigated using analyses (...) of variance (ANOVAs) and t-tests, with results suggesting that ME-PSM is higher among younger health professionals, nurses (when compared with physicians and other health professionals), and Chinese health professionals (when compared with French and American health professionals).ResultsResults provide preliminary support for the psychometric quality of the survey measure introduced in this study, including the existence of a single latent structure and partial invariance of collected data across countries.ConclusionThe survey measure for ME-PSM which was developed and tested in the current study appears to hold potential utility for use as a measure of moral views of patient substance misuse. With development, this measure may be used to examine moral evaluations, both as factors of stigma and of other clinical factors associated with the treatment of patients with substance use disorders. (shrink)

Utilitarianism is one of the most famous ethical doctrines, based on the ideal of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. But Utilitarians and their opponents lack a clear scientific and philosophical understanding of its foundations, the measurement and aggregation of utility. This is what The Pursuit of Happiness now offers.

The majority consensus in the empirical literature is that probability weighting functions are typically inverse-S shaped, that is, people tend to overweight small and underweight large probabilities. A separate stream of literature has reported event-splitting effects and shown that they can explain violations of expected utility. This leads to the questions whether the observed shape of weighting functions is a mere consequence of the coalesced presentation and, more generally, whether preference elicitation should rely on presenting lotteries in a canonical (...) split form instead of the commonly used coalesced form. We analyze data from a binary choice experiment where all lottery pairs are presented in both split and coalesced forms. Our results show that the presentation in a split form leads to a better fit of expected utility theory and to probability weighting functions that are closer to linear. We thus provide some evidence that the extent of probability weighting is not an ingrained feature, but rather a result of processing difficulties. (shrink)

Volume 26, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 380-384.

This article examines how well the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics ratings measure past corporate social performance and predict future corporate social performance in Diversity and Governance categories. The results show that the KLD ratings effectively measure and predict social performance in both categories. The results also suggest that the KLD ratings may identify differences in the quality of management and firm which can affect future social performance and is not entirely explained by past social performance. The (...) findings of this study lend some support for empirical studies relying on the KLD ratings to operationalize corporate social performance. The findings suggest that users of the ratings need to have a clear understanding of what information they are seeking from the KLD ratings in order to maximize the utility of these ratings. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the connections between the evolution of Patrick Suppes’ measurement theory from 1951 to 1958 and the research in utility analysis he conducted between 1953 and 1957 within the Stanford Value Theory Project. In particular, the paper shows that Suppes’ superseding of the classical understanding of measurement, his endorsement of the representational view of measurement, and his conceiving of an axiomatic version of the latter were prompted by his research in utility analysis.

Matthew Adler's Measuring Social Welfare is an introduction to the social welfare function (SWF) methodology. This essay questions some ideas at the core of the SWF methodology having to do with the relation between the SWF and the measure of well-being. The facts about individual well-being do not single out a particular scale on which well-being must be measured. As with physical quantities, there are multiple scales that can be used to represent the same information about well-being; no one (...) scale is special. Like physical laws, the SWF and its ranking of distributions cannot depend on exactly which of these scales we use. Adler and other theorists in the SWF tradition have used this idea to derive highly restrictive constraints on the shape of the SWF. These constraints rule out seemingly plausible views about distributive justice and population ethics. I argue, however, that these constraints stem from a simple but instructive mistake. The SWF should not be applied to vectors of numbers such as 1 and 2, but rather to vectors of dimensioned quantities such as 1 util and 2 utils. This seemingly pedantic suggestion turns out to have far-reaching consequences. Unlike the orthodox SWF approach, treating welfare levels as dimensioned quantities lets us distinguish between real changes in well-being and mere changes in the unit of measurement. It does this without making the SWF depend on the scale on which welfare is measured, and in a way that avoids the restrictive constraints on the shape of the SWF. (shrink)

Individual differences in ethical ideology are believed to play a key role in ethical decision making. Forsyths (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) is designed to measure ethical ideology along two dimensions, relativism and idealism. This study extends the work of Forsyth by examining the construct validity of the EPQ. Confirmatory factor analyses conducted with independent samples indicated three factors – idealism, relativism, and veracity – account for the relationships among EPQ items. In order to provide further evidence of the (...) instruments nomological and convergent validity, correlations among the EPQ subscales, dogmatism, empathy, and individual differences in the use of moral rationales were examined. The relationship between EPQ measures of idealism and moral judgments demonstrated modest predictive validity, but the appreciably weaker influence of relativism and the emergence of a veracity factor raise questions about the utility of the EPQ typology. (shrink)

Volume 26, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 389-392.

Consider a subjective expected utility preference relation. It is usually held that the representations which this relation admits differ only in one respect, namely, the possible scales for the measurement of utility. In this paper, I discuss the fact that there are, metaphorically speaking, two additional dimensions along which infinitely many more admissible representations can be found. The first additional dimension is that of state-dependence. The second—and, in this context, much lesser-known—additional dimension is that of act-dependence. The simplest (...) implication of their usually neglected existence is that the standard axiomatizations of subjective expected utility fail to provide the measurement of subjective probability with satisfactory behavioral foundations. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a new normative theory of rational choice under risk, namely expected comparative utility (ECU) theory. I first show that for any choice option, a, and for any state of the world, G, the measure of the choiceworthiness of a in G is the comparative utility (CU) of a in G—that is, the difference in utility, in G, between a and whichever alternative to a carries the greatest utility in G. (...) On the basis of this principle, I then argue that for any agent, S, faced with any decision under risk, S should rank his or her decision options (in terms of how choiceworthy they are) according to their comparative expected comparative utility (CECU) and should choose whichever option carries the greatest CECU. For any option, a, a’s CECU is the difference between its ECU and that of whichever alternative to a carries the greatest ECU, where a’s ECU is a probability‐weighted sum of a’s CUs across the various possible states of the world. I lastly demonstrate that in some ordinary decisions under risk, ECU theory delivers different verdicts from those of standard decision theory. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to (...) eight ethical vignettes. The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles. This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

In late-nineteenth-century economics, there was an epoch-defining shift from the labour theory of value to the marginal utility theory of value. According to the latter, the economic value of some circumstance (obtaining some good, some service, and so on) is its subjective utility at the margin. Thus, while there is an absolute sense in which I prefer having water to having diamonds, at the present moment I value one more unit of diamonds more than I value one more (...) unit of water. That is why I am willing to pay a higher price for a bowl of diamonds than a bowl of water of the same size, even though water is ‘more valuable’ in a sense. While the marginalists resolved a large array of anomalies that had troubled the labour theory of value, they also believed that utility should be measurable if their theory was to be scientifically respectable. Taking this shift as his starting point, Ivan Moscati has provided a well-written, thorough, and insightful account of the history of utility measurement from 1870 to 1985. (shrink)

In recent years, several authors have called to ground descriptive and normative decision theory on neuro-psychological measures of utility. In this paper, I combine insights from the best available neuro-psychological findings, leading philosophical conceptions of welfare and contemporary decision theory to rebut these prominent calls. I argue for two claims of general interest to philosophers, choice modellers and policy makers. First, severe conceptual, epistemic and evidential problems plague ongoing attempts to develop accurate and reliable neuro-psychological measures of utility. (...) And second, even if these problems are solved, neuro-psychological measures of utility lack the potential to inform welfare analyses and policy evaluations. (shrink)

Discovering high-utility itemsets (HUIs) consists of finding sets of items that yield a high profit in customer transaction databases. An important limitation of traditional high-utility itemset mining (HUIM) is that only the utility measure is used for assessing the interestingness of patterns. This leads to finding several itemsets that have a high profit but contain items that are weakly correlated. To address this issue, this paper proposes to integrate the concept of correlation in HUIM to find (...) profitable itemsets that are highly correlated, using the all-confidence and bond measures. An efficient algorithm named FCHM (fast correlated high-utility itemset miner) is proposed to efficiently discover correlated high-utility itemsets (CHIs). Two versions of the algorithm are proposed: FCHM|$_{all\text{-}confidence}$| and FCHM|$_{bond}$|⁠, which are based on the all-confidence and bond measures, respectively. An experimental evaluation was done using four real-life benchmark datasets from the HUIM literature: mushroom, retail, kosarak and foodmart. Results show that FCHM is efficient and can prune a huge amount of weakly CHIs. (shrink)

A symmetric network consists of a set of positions and a set of bilateral links between these positions. For every symmetric network we define a cooperative transferable utility game that measures the “power” of each coalition of positions in the network. Applying the Shapley value to this game yields a network power measure, the β-measure, which reflects the power of the individual positions in the network. Applying this power distribution method iteratively yields a limit distribution, which turns (...) out to be proportional to the well-known degree measure. We compare the β-measure and degree measure by providing characterizations, which differ only in the normalization that is used. (shrink)

In ‘Measuring the Consequences of Rules’, Holly Smith presents two problems involving the indeterminacy of compliance, which she takes to be fatal for all forms of rule-utilitarianism. In this reply, I attempt to dispel both problems.