Population ethics is defined and presented, and some of the paradoxes it encapsulates are spelled out. It is argued that the concept of the quality of a life or of a life worth living can- not be avoided if inquiry on many relevant ethical and political topics is to be pursued in a theoretically fitting mode. In particular, the article deals with the asymmetry between rea- sons for not creating unhappy lives and reasons for creating happy lives, the (...) well-known repugnant conclusion and the paradox of mere addition. (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion is acceptable from the point of view of total utilitarianism. Total utilitarians do not seem to be bothered with it. They feel that it is in no way repugnant. To me, a hard-nosed total utilitarian, this settles the case. However, if, sometimes, I doubt that total utilitarianism has the final say in ethics, and tend to think that there may be something to some objection to it or another, it is the objection to it brought forward from (...) egalitarian thought that first comes to mind. But if my argument in this article is correct, then it is clear that the repugnant conclusion should be equally acceptable to egalitarians of various different bents as it is to total utilitarians. (shrink)

In the face of an impossibility result, some assumption must be relaxed. The Mere Addition Paradox is an impossibility result in population ethics. Here, I explore substantially weakening the decision-theoretic assumptions involved. The central finding is that the Mere Addition Paradox persists even in the general framework of choice functions when we assume Path Independence as a minimal decision-theoretic constraint. Choice functions can be thought of either as generalizing the standard axiological assumption of a binary “betterness” relation, or as (...) providing a general framework for a normative (rather than axiological) theory of population ethics. Path Independence, a weaker assumption than typically (implicitly) made in population ethics, expresses the idea that, in making a choice from a set of alternatives, the order in which options are assessed or considered is ethically arbitrary and should not affect the final choice. Since the result establishes a conflict between the relevant ethical principles and even very weak decision-theoretic principles, we have more reason to doubt the ethical principles. (shrink)

Recently, in his Rolf Schock Prize Lecture, Derek Parfit has suggested a novel way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing what he calls “imprecision” in value comparisons. He suggests that in a range of important cases, populations of different sizes are only imprecisely comparable. Parfit suggests that this feature of value comparisons opens up a way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other counterintuitive conclusions, and thus solves one of the major challenges in ethics. In this article, I (...) try to clarify Parfit's proposal and evaluate whether it will help us with the paradoxes in population ethics. (shrink)

Recently, in his Rolf Schock Prize Lecture, Derek Parfit has suggested a novel way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion by introducing what he calls “imprecision” in value comparisons. He suggests that in a range of important cases, populations of different sizes are only imprecisely comparable. Parfit suggests that this feature of value comparisons opens up a way of avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion without implying other counterintuitive conclusions, and thus solves one of the major challenges in ethics. In this article, I (...) try to clarify Parfit’s proposal and evaluate whether it will help us with the paradoxes in population ethics. (shrink)

As the title of this paper indicates, I’m going to discuss what we ought to do in situations where our actions affect future generations. More specifically, I shall focus on the moral problems raised by cases where our actions affect who’s going to live, their number and their well being. I’ll start, however, with population axiology. Most discussion in population ethics has concentrated on how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations (...) by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which purport to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Derek Parfit’s Mere Addition Paradox is a case in point. The main question of my paper concerns the implication of such axiological paradoxes for normative theories. Do the axiological paradoxes translate into paradoxes for normative theories or will they, as some believe, disappear if we switch to a normative framework? (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relations between population ethics and metaethics. Population ethics gives rise to well-known paradoxes, such as the paradox of mere addition. After presenting a version of this paradox, it is argued that a different way to dismantle it might be by considering it as a way to change our standard view of justification in moral theory. Two possible views are considered: a non-cognitivist approach to justification and to the explanation of inconsistency in morals; (...) Parfit's suggestion that certain paradoxes might be «quarantined» without shaking our confidence in moral theories encapsulating them. (shrink)

How social workers do construct what is ‘ethical’ in their work, especially when they are positioned at the intersection of multiple paradoxes, including that of two opposing responsibilities in society: namely, to care for others but also to prevent others from harm? Paradoxes in practice are especially complicated to manage in the neoliberalism of the Global North where the priority of efficiency has been heightened and the obligation towards the most vulnerable has been weakened. Taking data from a (...) Canadian study, this paper delineates the structural paradoxes of practice and elaborates on the concept of ethical trespass, especially in times of austerity. Ideas are illustrated with case material from participants who were practitioners working with a population of young single impoverished mothers. Impacts of the discourses on single mothers, resource inadequacies, and increased surveillance on clients are discussed, and the effects on workers such as individualization and burnout will be outlined. Despite the challenges, practitioners in the study found ways to minimize trespass and act ethically. The strategies employed included problematizing the helping relationship, being a responsible traitor, dissident speech, and the use of contextualized practice. (shrink)

Recently, Estes and Arnold claimed to have “solved” the paradox of evolutionary stasis; they claim that stabilizing selection, and only stabilizing selection, can explain the patterns of evolutionary divergence observed over “all timescales.” While Estes and Arnold clearly think that they have identified the processes that produce evolutionary stasis, they have not. Instead, Estes and Arnold identify a particular evolutionary pattern but not the processes that produce that pattern. This mistake is important; the slippage between pattern and process is common (...) in population and quantitative genetics and contributes to a persistent misunderstanding of the nature of explanations in evolutionary biology. †To contact the author, please write to: Philosophy Department, 208 Hovland Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331‐3902; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The multiverse theodicy proposes to reconcile the existence of God and evil by supposing that God created all and only the creation-worthy universes and that some universes like ours are, despite their evils, creation-worthy. Drawing on work in population ethics, this paper develops a novel challenge to the multiverse theodicy. Roughly, the challenge contends that the axiological underpinnings of the multiverse theodicy harbor a ‘mere addition paradox’: the assumption that creating creation-worthy universes would always make the world better turns (...) out to have morally repugnant consequences akin to those of the assumption that adding worthwhile lives to a population would always make the overall welfare of the population better. Further, the challenge leverages this difficulty into an argument against God’s having created all and only the creation-worthy universes, and hence against the multiverse theodicy. Responses to this challenge are considered but found wanting, largely because of commitments of the multiverse theodicy that have no analogs in population ethics. (shrink)

Tolerant discourse in the United States has responded to heightened stereotyping of Muslims as violent by countering that “not all Muslims are terrorists.” This subtyping of Muslims—as some radical terrorists among mostly peaceful “moderates”—is meant to protect a positive image of the group but leaves the original negative stereotype unchanged. We predicted that such discourse may paradoxically increase people’s support of anti-Muslim policies because the subtyping and its associated negative stereotypes justify hostile actions toward Muslims. In Study 1, subtyping predicted (...) support for three anti-Muslim policies, but only among political moderates and conservatives. In Study 2, participants who were exposed to subtyping narratives expressed greater support for surveillance of Muslims in the United States. The effect of subtyping narrative exposure was stronger on support for hawkish anti-terror policy when participants’ preexisting endorsement of subtyping was low. Irrespective of the well-meaning intentions of peaceful vs. radical subtyping, its expression can justify ongoing “War on Terror” policies. As the population of Muslims increases in North America, the intuition that most Muslims do not meet the negative stereotype may ironically reduce inclusion. (shrink)

The expansion of the older population suggests that there will be significant numbers in need of care and support in their own home environment. Yet, little is known about the kind of situations professionals are faced with and how they intervene in the living environment of older people. Qualitative data were collected over a period of 1.5 years from a multi-disciplinary community-based geriatric team in the Netherlands, and participant observations carried out. Forty-two cases discussed within the team meetings were (...) analysed. Results demonstrate that providing care to older people is a dynamic process and revolves around various paradoxes as experienced by professionals. This is illustrated by presenting three paradoxes that emerged within the data: respecting autonomy versus preserving safety; the care needs of the care recipients versus the capacity of their informal carers to cope; and holding a formal orientation versus a tailored orientation on tasks. Providing care in the home environment of older people requires from professionals a continuous anticipation of (un)expected evolutions in situations of their care recipients. In order to optimally support older people professionals need ‘professional discretion’. They must be supported to systematically reflect on and legitimize their intervention strategies. (shrink)

This handbook presents up-to-date theoretical analyses of problems associated with the moral standing of future people in current decision-making. Future people pose an especially hard problem for our current decision-making, since their number and their identities are not fixed but depend on the choices the present generation makes. Do we make the world better by creating more people with good lives? What do we owe future generations in terms of justice? Such questions are not only philosophically difficult and important, but (...) also directly relevant to many practical decisions and policy issues, including on climate, health, population control and taxation. If we are to adequately assess such issues, we must be able to determine the value of differently sized populations. The aim of this handbook is to shed light on the value of population change and the nature of our obligations to future generations, and to offer practical guidance to policy-makers as to how our duties to future generations should be discharged. It contains an extensive and accessible introduction for those unfamiliar with the topic of population ethics as well as original work from key figures in academic debates on population ethics covering three main themes: ways out of the paradoxes of population ethics, questioning some philosophical and methodological assumptions underlying these paradoxes, and several applications of population ethics to real world issues. (shrink)

Over half of the world's population (3 billon people) now lives in urban environments. The combination of people, industry, and commerce enmeshed in environments over-determined by plans, designs, and configurations that continue to emphasize ease, efficiency, and spatial sprawl over ecological constraints and sustainability help to make urban environments the primary contributors to multiple types of ecological degradation. With this in mind, urban environments demand greater sustained theoretical and practical attention than has been and is the norm under status (...) quo approaches to urbanism that pay little regard to ecological constraints and under traditional models of environmentalism informed by an anti-urban bias. Fortunately, an emerging form of urban environmentalism exists that recognizes the central ecological role of urban environments. This emerging form of urban environmentalism also recognizes urban environments to be the places where environmental problems are often most severe and where environmental solutions are in most need of immediate implementation. The upshot of this dual recognition is that it is accompanied by a growing dual awareness of urban environmental problems and solutions. In this paper I argue that despite this dual recognition and awareness, a paradoxical form of inaction is the norm when it comes to implementing urban environmental solutions. I explain why this is the case by outlining what I call the paradox of urban environmentalism. I explain why the paradox should be considered one of the most significant problems of this new environmental century as well as that frame which opens the door to a new sense of what is possible in urban environments. In the process of considering what is possible, I arrive at some preliminary conclusions about a possible methodological role philosophers can play in helping to address this paradoxical inaction in the hopes of bringing about more sustainable urban environments. (shrink)

This monograph presents Azzouni’s new approach to the rule-following paradox. His solution leaves intact an isolated individual’s capacity to follow rules, and it simultaneously avoids replacing the truth conditions for meaning-talk with mere assertability conditions for that talk. Kripke’s influential version of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox—and Wittgenstein’s views more generally—on the contrary, make rule-following practices and assertions about those practices subject to community norms without which they lose their cogency. Azzouni summarizes and develops Kripke’s original version of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox to (...) make salient the linchpin assumptions of the paradox. By doing so, Azzouni reveals how compelling Kripke’s earlier work on the paradox was. Objections raised over the years by Fodor, Forbes Ginsborg, Goldfarb, Tait, Wright, and many others, are all shown to fail. No straight solution can be made to work. Azzouni illustrates this in detail by showing that a popular family of straight solutions due to Lewis and refined by Williams, “reference magnetism,” fail as well. And yet an overlooked sceptical solution is still available in logical space. Azzouni describes a series of “disposition-meaning” private languages that he shows can be successfully used by a population of speakers to communicate with one another despite their ideolectical character. The same sorts of languages enable solitary “Robinson Crusoes” to survive and flourish in their island habitats. These languages—sufficiently refined—have the same properties normal human languages have; and this is the key to solving the rule-following paradox without sacrificing the individual’s authority over her self-imposed rules or her ability to follow those rules. Azzouni concludes this unusual monograph by uncovering a striking resemblance between the rule-following paradox and Hume’s problem of induction: he shows the rule-following paradox to be a corollary of Hume’s problem that arises when the problem of induction is applied to an individual’s own abilities to follow rules. (shrink)

Discussions of the implications of sexual reproduction have appeared throughout the history of evolutionary biology, from Darwin to Weismann, Fisher, Muller, Maynard Smith, and Williams. The latest of these appearances highlighted an evolutionary paradox that had previously been overlooked. In many animal and plant species reproduction is obligately sexual and also half the offspring are male, yet the males contribute nothing but genes to reproduction. If asexual mutants of such a species were to produce as many asexual offspring on average (...) as sexual females in that species produce daughters and sons, the growth rate of their population would be twice as large. Whereas half the offspring of sexual females are noncontributory males, all the offspring of such an asexual mutant would contribute to growth rate. Nevertheless, sexual reproduction prevails in most species and is not lost evolutionarily. (shrink)

A sorites argument is a symptom of the vagueness of the predicate with which it is constructed. A vague predicate admits of at least one dimension of variation (and typically more than one) in its intended range along which we are at a loss when to say the predicate ceases to apply, though we start out confident that it does. It is this feature of them that the sorites arguments exploit. Exactly how is part of the subject of this paper. (...) The majority of philosophers writing on vagueness take it to be a kind of semantic phenomenon. If we are right, they are correct in this assumption, which is surely the default position, but they have not so far provided a satisfactory account of the implications of this or a satisfactory diagnosis of the sorites arguments. Other philosophers have urged more exotic responses, which range from the view that the fault lies not in our language, but in the world, which they propose to be populated with vague objects which our semantics precisely reflects, to the view that the world and language are both perfectly in order, but that the fault lies with our knowledge of the properties of the words we use (epistemicism). In contrast to the exotica to which some philosophers have found themselves driven in an attempt to respond to the sorites puzzles, we undertake a defense of the commonsense view that vague terms are semantically vague. Our strategy is to take fresh look at the phenomenon of vagueness. Rather than attempting to adjudicate between different extant theories, we begin with certain pre-theoretic intuitions about vague terms, and a default position on classical logic. The aim is to see whether (i) a natural story can be told which will explain the vagueness phenomenon and the puzzling nature of soritical arguments, and, in the course of this, to see whether (ii) there arises any compelling pressure to give up the natural stance. We conclude that there is a simple and natural story to be told, and we tell it, and that there is no good reason to abandon our intuitively compelling starting point. The importance of the strategy lies in its dialectical structure. Not all positions on vagueness are on a par. Some are so incredible that even their defenders think of them as positions of last resort, positions to which we must be driven by the power of philosophical argument. We aim to show that there is no pressure to adopt these incredible positions, obviating the need to respond to them directly. If we are right, semantic vagueness is neither surprising, nor threatening. It provides no reason to suppose that the logic of natural languages is not classical or to give up any independently plausible principle of bivalence. Properly understood, it provides us with a satisfying diagnosis of the sorites argumentation. It would be rash to claim to have any completely novel view about a topic so well worked as vagueness. But we believe that the subject, though ancient, still retains its power to inform and challenge us. In particular, we will argue that taking seriously the central phenomenon of predicate vagueness—the “boundarylessness” of vague predicates—on the commonsense assumption that vagueness is semantic, leads ineluctably to the view that no sentences containing vague expressions (henceforth ‘vague sentences’) are truth-evaluable. This runs counter to much of the literature on vagueness, which commonly assumes that, though some applications of vague predicates to objects fail to be truth-evaluable, in clear positive and negative cases vague sentences are unproblematically true or false. It is clarity on this, and related points, that removes the puzzles associated with vagueness, and helps us to a satisfying diagnosis of why the sorites arguments both seem compelling and yet so obviously a bit of trickery. We give a proof that semantically vague predicates neither apply nor fail-to-apply to anything, and that consequently it is a mistake to diagnose sorites arguments, as is commonly done, by attempting to locate in them a false premise. Sorites arguments are not sound, but not unsound either. We offer an explanation of their appeal, and defend our position against a variety of worries that might arise about it. The plan of the paper is as follows. We first introduce an important distinction in terms of which we characterize what has gone wrong with vague predicates. We characterize what we believe to be our natural starting point in thinking about the phenomenon of vagueness, from which only a powerful argument should move us, and then trace out the consequences of accepting this starting point. We consider the charge that among the consequences of semantic vagueness are that we must give up classical logic and the principle of bivalence, which has figured prominently in arguments for epistemicism. We argue there are no such consequences of our view: neither the view that the logic of natural languages is classical, nor any plausible principle of bivalence, need be given up. Next, we offer a diagnosis of what has gone wrong in sorites arguments on the basis of our account. We then present an argument to show that our account must be accepted on pain of embracing (in one way or another) the epistemic view of “vagueness”, i.e., of denying that there are any semantically vague terms at all. Next, we discuss some worries that may arise about the intelligibility of our linguistic practices if our account is correct. We argue none of these worries should force us from our intuitive starting point. Finally, we cast a quick glance at other forms of semantic incompleteness. (shrink)

Homologous centromeres compete for segregation to the secondary oocyte nucleus at female meiosis I. Centromeric repeats also compete with each other to populate centromeres in mitotic cells of the germline and have become adapted to use the recombinational machinery present at centromeres to promote their own propagation. Repeats are not needed at centromeres, rather centromeres appear to be hospitable habitats for the colonization and proliferation of repeats. This is probably an indirect consequence of two distinctive features of centromeric DNA. Centromeres (...) are subject to breakage by the mechanical forces exerted by microtubules and meiotic crossing‐over is suppressed. Centromeric proteins acting in trans are under selection to mitigate the costs of centromeric repeats acting in cis. Collateral costs of mitotic competition at centromeres may help to explain the high rates of aneuploidy observed in early human embryos. (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose's ‘prevention paradox’ occurs when a population-based preventative health measure that brings large benefits to the community – such as compulsory seatbelts, a ‘fat tax’, or mass immunisation – offers little to each participating individual. Although the prevention paradox is not obviously a paradox in the sense in which philosophers understand the term, it does raise important normative questions. In particular, should we implement population-based preventative health measures when the typical individual is not expected to gain from (...) them? After canvassing other attempts to address the paradox, I argue that what is significant about the prevention paradox is that it involves intra-personal trade-offs; the costs and benefits of the choice to implement or not implement a preventative health measure fall on the same individuals. The intra-personal nature of these trade-offs has two implications. First, the solutions to the paradox proposed by other authors are deficient. Second, the policy choice to not implement some preventative health measures can be normatively justified. (shrink)

We provide a solution to the well-known “Shooting-Room” paradox, developed by John Leslie in connection with his Doomsday Argument. In the “Shooting-Room” paradox, the death of an individual is contingent upon an event that has a 1/36 chance of occurring, yet the relative frequency of death in the relevant population is 0.9. There are two intuitively plausible arguments, one concluding that the appropriate subjective probability of death is 1/36, the other that this probability is 0.9. How are these two (...) values to be reconciled? We show that only the first argument is valid for a standard, countably additive probability distribution. However, both lines of reasoning are legitimate if probabilities are non-standard. The subjective probability of death rises from 1/36 to 0.9 by conditionalizing on an event that is not measurable, or whose probability is zero. Thus we can sometimes meaningfully ascribe conditional probabilities even when the event conditionalized upon is not of positive finite (or even infinitesimal) measure. (shrink)

The black hole information loss paradox is a catch-all term for a family of puzzles related to black hole evaporation. For almost 50 years, the quest to elucidate the implications of black hole evaporation has not only sustained momentum, but has also become increasingly populated with proposals that seem to generate more questions than they purport to answer. Scholars often neglect to acknowledge ongoing discussions within black hole thermodynamics and statistical mechanics when analyzing the paradox, including the interpretation of Bekenstein-Hawking (...) entropy, which is far from settled. To remedy the dialectical gridlock, I have formulated an overarching, unified framework, which I call ``Black Hole Paradoxes'', that integrates the debates and taxonomizes the relevant `camps' or philosophical positions. -/- I demonstrate that black hole evaporation within Hawking's semi-classical framework insinuates how late-time Hawking radiation is an entangled global system, a contradiction in terms. The relevant forms of information loss are associated with a decrease in maximal Boltzmann entropy and an increase in global von Neumann entropy respectively, which engender what I've branded the ``paradox of phantom entanglement''. Prospective solutions are then tasked with demonstrating how late-time Hawking radiation is either exclusively an entangled subsystem, in which a black hole remnant lingers as an information safehouse, or exclusively an unentangled global system, in which information is evacuated to the exterior. -/- The disagreement between safehouse and evacuation solutions boils down to the statistical interpretation of thermodynamic black hole entropy, i.e., Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Safehouse solutions attribute Bekenstein-Hawking entropy to a minority of black hole degrees of freedom, those that are associated with the horizon. Evacuation solutions, in contrast, attribute Bekenstein-Hawking entropy to all black hole degrees of freedom. I argue that the interpretation of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is the litmus test to vet the overpopulated proposal space. So long as any proposal rejecting Hawking's original calculation independently derives black hole evaporation, globally conserves degrees of freedom and entanglement, preserves a version of semi-classical gravity at sub-Planckian scales, and describes black hole thermodynamics in statistical terms, then it counts as a genuine solution to the paradox. (shrink)

The theoretical heuristic of assuming distinct alleles (or genotypes) for alternative phenotypes is the foundation of the paradigm of evolutionary explanation we call the Modern Synthesis. In modeling the evolution of sociality, the heuristic has been to set altruism and selfishness as alternative phenotypes under distinct genotypes, which has been dubbed the “phenotypic gambit.” The prevalence of the altruistic genotype that is of lower evolutionary fitness relative to the alternative genotype for non-altruistic behavior in populations is the basis of the (...) “paradox of altruism.” I show in this article that the assumption of contrasting genotypes for altruism and selfishness in our “phenotypic gambit” is inconsistent with the empirical data when viewed in the light of today’s post-Mendelian understanding of gene expression. I demonstrate that however nuanced and sophisticated the models may have become today, they are still rooted in that fundamentally problematic assumption. I then offer a genetic conception of altruism that best fits the field data. (shrink)

Higher courts sometimes assess the constitutionality of law by working through a concrete case, other times by reasoning about the underlying question in a more abstract way. Prior research has found that the degree of concreteness or abstraction with which an issue is formulated can influence people's prescriptive views: For instance, people often endorse punishment for concrete misdeeds that they would oppose if the circumstances were described abstractly. We sought to understand whether the so-called ‘abstract/concrete paradox’ also jeopardizes the consistency (...) of judicial reasoning. In a series of experiments, both lay and professional judges sometimes reached opposite conclusions when reasoning about concrete cases versus the underlying issues formulated in abstract terms. This effect emerged whether participants reasoned with broad principles, such as human dignity, or narrow rules, and was largest among individuals high in trait empathy. Finally, to understand whether people reflectively endorse the discrepancy between abstract and concrete resolutions, we examined their reactions when evaluating both, either simultaneously or sequentially. These approaches revealed no single pattern across lay and expert populations, or exploratory and confirmatory studies. Taken together, our studies suggest that empathic concern plays a greater role in guiding the judicial resolution of concrete cases than in illuminating judges' professed standards—which may result in concrete decisions in violation of their own abstract principles. (shrink)

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than ” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with paradoxes and impossibility results which seem to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. All of these results have one thing in common, however. They all involve an adequacy condition that rules (...) out Derek Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion. Moreover, some theorists have argued that we should accept the Repugnant Conclusion and hence that avoidance of this conclusion is not a convincing adequacy condition for a population axiology. As I shall show in this chapter, however, one can replace avoidance of the Repugnant Conclusion with a logically weaker and intuitively more convincing condition. The resulting theorem involves, to the best of my knowledge, logically weaker and intuitively more compelling conditions than the other theorems presented in the literature. As such, it. (shrink)

The main trust of this article unfolds around the impasse of democratic politics today, marked by the fading belief in the presumably superior architecture of liberal democratic institutions to nurture emancipation on the one hand, and the seemingly inexorable rise of a variety of populist political movements on the other. The first part of the article focuses on the lure of autocratic populism. The second part considers how transforming neoliberal governance arrangements pioneered post-truth autocratic politics/policies in articulation with the imposition (...) of market rule and, in doing so, cleared the way for contemporary illiberal populisms. The third part considers the institutional configuration through which the democratic has been fundamentally transformed over the past few decades in the direction of a post-democratic constellation. The article concludes by arguing for the need to re-script emancipation as a process of political subjectivation unfolding trough a political act. (shrink)

This article sets out to explore the socio-linguistic situation of Goa, a small territory corresponding to the former district of Goa of the Portuguese Estado da Índia, occupied and annexed by India in 1961. Goa had to choose between local language, Konkani, and the language of the neighbouring state of Maharashtra, i. e., Marathi, which was traditionally used as a cultural language by the Hindus of Goa, who nowadays form the large majority of the population. Even if virtually every (...) Goan is able to speak Konkani, this was, according to recent statistics, the mother tongue of only 61 % of the population of the state, the rest being forms by people from other parts of India, who migrated here. This phenomenon explains the feeble proportion of Konkani speakers in the total population of the state, which favours the resort to English as a means of communication and explains why Konkani only keeps an elevated status in churches, where it is currently used for praying and preaching. Drawing upon historical facts, but also on socio-linguistic consideration, we will try to explain this paradox. (shrink)

The circumscription of taxa and classification of organisms are fundamental tasks in the systematization of biological diversity. Their success depends on a unified idea concerning the species concept, evolution, and taxonomy; paradoxically, however, it requires a complete distinction between taxa and evolutionary units. To justify this view, I discuss these three topics of systematics. Species concepts are examined, and I propose a redefinition for the Taxonomic Species Concept based on nomenclatural properties, in which species are classes conventionally represented by a (...) binomial. Speciation is subsequently discussed, to demonstrate that concepts on the evolutionary process are damaged when species are considered as evolutionary units. Speciation should be considered a transition among patterns of a population and, consequently, always a sympatric process. This view contrasts with the majority of speciation models, which analyze cladogeneses and classify speciation geographically, usually considering allopatry the essential condition for the differentiation process. Finally, taxonomy is considered, to show that the equivalence between evolutionary and taxonomic units may also damage the practice of biological systematization. Principles and rules of nomenclature and classification should offer freedom to accommodate divergent opinions about systematics and to incorporate the evolution of knowledge; therefore, they should remain independent of biological theories. (shrink)

La théorie des jeux évolutionnaires s'oppose à la théorie des jeux classique en ce qu 'elle élimine les raisonnements des joueurs. Peut-elle dépasser les apories de la théorie classique ? Mais en reconsidérant le raisonnement classique d'induction rétrograde, en y introduisant des possibilités de révision, on évite son aspect paradoxal. L'intérêt de la théorie des jeux évolutionnaires est donc surtout de simuler l'évolution d'interactions dans des populations.Evolutionary game theory does not take into account reasoning players, in contrast with classical game (...) theory. Can it overcome some drawbacks of classical theory ? If we reconsider the backward induction reasoning, and if introduce the possibility of revising, paradoxes and drawbacks disappear. So the main interest of evolutionary game theoiy consists in the simulation of evolution of interactions among populations. (shrink)

A principal aim of the branch of ethics called ‘population theory’ or ‘population ethics’ is to find a plausible welfarist axiology, capable of comparing total outcomes with respect to value. This has proved an exceedingly difficult task. In this paper I shall state and discuss two ‘trilemmas’, or choices between three unappealing alternatives, which the population ethicist must face. The first trilemma is not new. It originates with Derek Parfit's well-known ‘Mere Addition Paradox’, and was first explicitly (...) stated by Yew-Kwang Ng. I shall argue that one horn of this trilemma is less unattractive than Parfit and others have claimed. The second trilemma, which is a kind of mirror image of the first, appears hitherto to have gone unnoticed. Apart from attempting to resolve the two trilemmas, I shall suggest certain features which I believe a plausible welfarist axiology should possess. The details of this projected axiology will, however, be left open. (shrink)

According to axiological retributivism, people can deserve what is bad for them and an outcome in which someone gets what she deserves, even if it is bad for her, can thereby have intrinsic positive value. A question seldom asked is how axiological retributivism should deal with comparisons of outcomes that differ with respect to the number and identities of deserving agents. Attempting to answer this question exposes a problem for axiological retributivism that parallels a well-known problem in population axiology (...) introduced by John Broome. The problem for axiological retributivism is that it supports the existence of a range of negative wellbeing levels such that if a deserving person comes into existence at any of these levels, the resulting outcome is neither better nor worse with respect to desert. However, the existence of such a range is inconsistent with a set of very plausible axiological claims. I call this the desert neutrality paradox. After introducing the paradox, I consider several possible responses to it. I suggest that one reasonable response, though perhaps not the only one, is to reject axiological retributivism. (shrink)

According to public health data, the US Hispanic population is far healthier than would be expected for a population with low socioeconomic status. Ever since Kyriakos Markides and Jeannine Coreil highlighted this in a seminal 1986 article, public health researchers have sought to explain the so-called “Hispanic paradox.” Several candidate explanations have been offered over the years, but the debate goes on. This article offers a philosophical analysis that clarifies how two sets of obstacles make it particularly difficult (...) to explain the Hispanic paradox. First, different research projects define the Hispanic paradox phenomenon in substantially different ways. Moreover, using Bas van Fraassen’s pragmatic theory of explanation and Sean Valles’s extension of it with the concept of “phenomenon choice,” it also becomes clear that there are also multiple ways of explaining each individual definition of the phenomenon. A second set of philosophical and methodological challenges arises during any attempt to study “Hispanic” phenomena, with one key challenge being that the “Hispanic” panethnic concept was intentionally made vague as it was developed and popularized during the 1960s–1970s. After comparing this case with similar cases in the philosophical literature, the article concludes with observations on what makes this problem unique, particularly its ethical features. (shrink)

Amidst the climate of crisis surrounding the rise in opioid-related overdose in the USA, early in 2019, Google and Deloitte launched ‘Opioid360’. Here came a platform combining browser histories, credit, insurance, social media, and traditional survey data to sell the service of risk calculation in population health. Opioid360's approach to automating risk calculation not only promised to identify persons ‘at risk’ of opioid dependence, but also paved the way for broader applications anticipating common chronic diseases and coordinating logistical operations (...) involved in pandemic response. Beginning with this experimental platform, this paper develops an analysis of the Big Data mode of risk calculation - an epistemological and political shift that involves technology companies, investors, insurers, governments, and public health institutions. The analysis focuses on the re-emergence of ‘social determinants of health’ in the rhetoric accompanying novel analytic platforms that estimate, calculate, and compute individual health risks. While the treatment of SDOH has always been a site of political contestation within the discipline of public health, powerful interests are crystallising around the concept and instrumentalising it in platforms that sell algorithmic prediction. Silicon Valley's breed of asset-oriented technoscience appears not only to be amplifying the behaviouralist elements of public health. Among the stakes of the Big Data mode is the paradoxical retreat from changing social conditions that contribute to the prevalence of health and illness in populations; and instead, the promotion of an apparatus for pricing and exchanging individual risk or excluding from services those who bear risk most acutely. (shrink)

Nebel argues for the Repugnant Conclusion via the “Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion,” on which certainty of a mediocre life is better for individuals than a sufficiently small chance of an excellent life. In this article, I deny that acceptance of the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion leads us to the Repugnant Conclusion. I point out that on many views which avoid the Repugnant Conclusion we should discount very small probabilities down to zero. If we do, then Nebel’s crucial premise of Ex Ante Pareto (...) fails, because discounting at the individual level can fail to match up with discounting at the population level. (shrink)

I resolve a previously unnoticed anomaly in the analysis of collective action problems. Some political theorists apply game theory to analyze the paradox of anarchy: War is apparently inevitable in anarchy even though all warring parties prefer peace over war. Others apply tipping threshold analysis to resolve the paradox of revolution: Joining a revolution is apparently always irrational even when an overwhelming majority of the population wish to replace their regime. The usual game theoretic analysis of anarchy yields the (...) conclusion that the suboptimal equilibrium of war is inevitable. The usual tipping threshold analysis of revolution yields the conclusion that the optimal equilibrium of successful revolution is possible. Yet structurally the collective action problems of anarchy and potential revolution are much the same. This suggests that tipping threshold analysis and game theory are incompatible methodologies, despite their widespread use in the social sciences. I argue that there is no real tension between game theory and tipping threshold analysis, even though these methodologies have developed largely independently of each other. I propose a Variable Belief Threshold model of collective action that combines elements of game theory and tipping threshold analysis. I show by example that one can use this kind of hybrid model to give compatible explanations of conflict in anarchy and successful revolution.1. Introduction2. Two Classic Problems, and Two Popular Analyses2.1. The paradox of anarchy2.2. The paradox of revolution3. Restating the Puzzle4. Evaluating the Prisoners’ Dilemma and S-Curve Models5. The Variable Belief Threshold ModelExample 5.1. A population of moderates with independent deviationsExample 5.2 A heterogeneous population with independent deviationsExample 5.3 A heterogeneous population with coordinated deviations6. ConclusionAppendix: Computer Simulations. (shrink)

Used wisely the concepts of race and ethnicity in research have great potential, but used unwisely they can do immense damage. We need to consider the potential issues that might require a change of emphasis or application of ethics in a multi-ethnic society. Doing no harm is the most important ethical pillar in the ethnicity and health field. Ethnic differences can be used in damaging ways. Without the ethic of beneficence in place it is better not to draw attention to (...) ethnic differences. Respect is the pre-condition for autonomy. Autonomy of ethnic minority populations to live in their own traditional way is not easy to achieve in multi-ethnic societies. There are difficult issues in multi-ethnic societies that require great sensitivity to create a sense of fairness and justice. Justice is the core value that underpins equity. There is a deep paradox – to promote equality, we may need to treat people and groups unequally. Ethical codes need to be modified to emphasize the importance of including ethnic minority populations in research and not bypassing them, as has been happening. It is correct, for example, that potential research participants' personal details are guarded. If such a person, however, does not read it may be unethical to send written information about a project. It may be more ethical to tele phone or even call at the doorstep of such a person. The history of racism in research is worrying, not least the fear that it might return. We need a governing code of conduct. Ethical research can help ethnic minority groups to move from the shadows of society and participate in a vibrant, healthy, multi-ethnic society. (shrink)

One proposal to significantly reduce cardiovascular disease is the idea of administering a ‘polypill’—a combination of drugs that reduce the risk of heart disease and carry few side effects—to everyone over the age of 55. Despite their promise, population strategies like the polypill have not been well-accepted. In this article, I defend the polypill by appealing to fairness. The argument focuses on the need to fairly distribute the costs to individuals. While the fact that population strategies like the (...) polypill impose minor costs on everyone has primarily been used to criticize such strategies, I argue that it gives us a reason to support them. I argue that implementing a population strategy with the polypill contributes to the public good of ‘health system capacity’. I then explain that public goods have widely accepted obligations: they carry an obligation to fairly distribute the costs of the goods and prevent free-riding. Thus, we have at least one pro tanto moral reason to implement the polypill. As such, this article challenges the current literature on the topic, which has largely held adopting population strategies like the polypill to be unjustifiable. (shrink)

Duties to future persons contribute critically to many important contemporaneous ethical dilemmas, such as environmental protection, contraception, abortion, and population policy. Yet this area of ethics is mired in paradoxes. It appeared that any principle for dealing with future persons encountered Kavka's paradox of future individuals, Parfit's repugnant conclusion, or an indefensible asymmetry. In 1976, Singer proposed a utilitarian solution that seemed to avoid the above trio of obstacles, but Parfit so successfully demonstrated the unacceptability of this position (...) that Singer abandoned it. Indeed, the apparently intransitivity of Singer's solution contributed to Temkin's argument that the notion of "all things considered better than" may be intransitive. In this paper, I demonstrate that a time-extended view of Singer's solution avoids the intransitivity that allows Parfit's mere addition paradox to lead to the repugnant conclusion. However, the heart of the mere addition paradox remains: the time-extended view still yields intransitive judgments. I discuss a general theory for dealing with intransitivity that was inspired by Temkin's sports analogy, and demonstrate that such a solution is more palatable than Temkin suspected. When a pair-wise comparison also requires consideration of a small number of relevant external alternatives, we can avoid intransitivity and the mere addition paradox without infinite comparisons or rejecting the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Principle. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project (HGP) brings genetics and genetic knowledge to the point of paradoxical counterproductivity. Population-wide genetic screens, replacing specific tests intended for and useful to those at risk, become counterproductive when the HGP's "normal human " defines everybody as at risk. More over, the knowledge generated by the HGP disables those whom it is meant to serve: We are rendered impotent as a laity, subject to expertise regarding the truth of our being. The standard response here is (...) that we need more science education and easier access to scientific knowledge. But that is simply to beg the question. The question to ask about knowledge is not whether it is true or properly scientific (which it may very well be) but rather whether it is good. The good of knowledge must be demonstrated and not uncritically assumed. Thus, more education can, too, be paradoxically counterproductive. What, then, are our prospects? (shrink)

This paper argues that the Repugnant Conclusion which the Mere Addition Paradox generates is not the same as the one which a sum-aggregative view like impersonal total utilitarianism leads to, but a slightly more moderate version of it. Given a spectrum of outcomes {A, B, C, …, X, Y, Z} such that in each of them there is a population that is twice as large as the previous one and has a level of wellbeing that is just barely lower (...) than the previous one, the Mere Addition Paradox implies that while almost all the outcomes of the spectrum are better than A, the last ones, such as Y and Z, will not, lest we accept that adding lives at a negative level is positive or neutral. This affects the way the Mere Addition Paradox should be presented. (shrink)

At a time when the long-established pattern of rural emigration in France is going into reverse, the number of French farmers is falling steeply. Whereas the French farming community represented over 50% of the total working population at the beginning of this century, their number will soon drop below the fateful 5% threshold. At a time when they see themselves (and are seen by others) as a minority, the farmers of France have become the world's second largest exporters of (...) agricultural produce—yet they continue to glut the market with excess output and their income is steadily decreasing. Political reactions to these far-reaching changes are inadequate to meet the situation, and the unions are responding with internal strife and divisions. Faced with a radically new situation which is largely dominated by external factors, the government and the unions are quite unable to rebuild French farming policy. (shrink)