1. 62387.853381
    |Source| My point is simple: knowledge is knowledge. Where it comes from doesn’t matter to its epistemic status. What matters is whether it deserves to be believed. The scientific revolution has provided a general approach – systematic inquiry into the independent evidential basis of claims (e.g. …
    Found 17 hours, 19 minutes ago on The Philosopher's Beard
  2. 148930.853481
    David Suzuki is an 89-year-old Canadian geneticist, science broadcaster and environmental activist. In this interview he says some things that I’ve come to agree with. • ‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost, iPolitics, 2 July 2025. …
    Found 1 day, 17 hours ago on Azimuth
  3. 232283.853501
    Apparently, Italy requires residents to secure a medical certificate before joining a gym, sports club, or other source of regular physical exercise. This is (very loosely) estimated to prevent a few deaths per year from sudden cardiac events but at a net cost of thousands of QALYs lost due to exercise deterrence. …
    Found 2 days, 16 hours ago on Good Thoughts
  4. 321562.853517
    How badly would it suck to die because a person who could have saved your life (along with the lives of four others tied to the train tracks beside you) preferred “allowing” to “doing”? A second was just about to save you when they realized that the side track—where just one person awaited as collateral damage—later loops back, turning the purportedly-collateral damage into an instrumental killing. …
    Found 3 days, 17 hours ago on Good Thoughts
  5. 322982.853531
    Scenarios and pathways, as defined and used in the “SSP-RCP scenario framework”, are key in last decade’s climate change research and in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this framework, Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) consist of a limited set of alternative socioeconomic futures, that are both represented in short qualitative narratives and with quantitative projections of key drivers. One important use of the computationally derived SSP-scenarios is to do mitigation analysis and present a “manageable” set of options to decision-makers. However, all SSPs and derivatively SSP-scenarios in this framework assume a globally growing economy into 2100. This, in practice, amounts to a value-laden restriction of the space of solutions to be presented to decision-makers, falling short of IPCC’s general mandate of being “policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive”. Yet, the Global Economic Growth Assumption (GEGA) could be challenged and in practice is challenged by post-growth scholars.
    Found 3 days, 17 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  6. 408086.853544
    Very short summary: This essay provides an account in favor of a progressive consumption tax, in light of the efficiency and fairness issues that affect the more common progressive income tax. I argue that the progressive consumption tax not only avoids the standard incentive problem but also responds to Hayek’s critique of the unfairness of progressive taxation. …
    Found 4 days, 17 hours ago on The Archimedean Point
  7. 488086.853557
    I’m a non-conformist, but not a reflexive contrarian. My chief goal is to enjoy every day of my life, and my non-conformism is only a means to that end. But what a means it is! By the power of non-conformism, I weasel out of hours of daily drudgery. …
    Found 5 days, 15 hours ago on Bet On It
  8. 495752.85357
    A common criticism of medicine is that there is too much focus on treating symptoms instead of patients. This criticism and its sentiment – among other factors – have motivated many ‘humanistic,’ ‘holistic,’ and ‘non-reductionist’ approaches to medicine including the biopsychosocial model, patient-centered medicine, ‘gentle’ medicine, and others. Much has been said detailing and defending these approaches. My aim here is not to further defend one or any of these. Rather, my aim is to better understand what is at the heart of the ‘common criticism,’ i.e., that treating symptoms – not patients – is bad. What does this mean? Are symptoms not something patients have? By treating symptoms, do clinicians not necessarily treat the patients that have them?
    Found 5 days, 17 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  9. 667138.853583
    It was a particularly cruel heckling. Ketel Marte, a star baseball player for the Arizona Diamondbacks, was brought to tears by a heckler who shouted derogatory comments about Marte’s late mother, Elpidia Valdez, who died in a car crash in 2017. …
    Found 1 week ago on More to Hate
  10. 754848.853595
    Scientists decide to perform an experiment based on the expectation that their efforts will bear fruit. While assessing such expectations belongs to the everyday work of practicing scientists, we have a limited understanding of the epistemological principles underlying such assessments. Here I argue that we should delineate a “context of pursuit” for experiments. The rational pursuit of experiments, like the pursuit of theories, is governed by distinct epistemic and pragmatic considerations that concern epistemic gain, likelihood of success, and feasibility. A key question that arises is: what exactly is being evaluated when we assess experimental pursuits? I argue that, beyond the research questions an experiment aims to address, we must also assess the concrete experimental facilities and activities involved, because (1) there are often multiple ways to address a research question, (2) pursuitworthy experiments typically address a combination of research questions, and (3) experimental pursuitworthiness can be boosted by past experimental successes. My claims are supported by a look into ongoing debates about future particle colliders.
    Found 1 week, 1 day ago on PhilSci Archive
  11. 754896.853622
    This article revisits Taurek’s famous question: Should the greater number be saved in situations of resource scarcity? At the heart of this debate lies a central issue in normative ethics—whether numerical superiority can constitute a moral pro tanto reason. Engaging with this question helps to illuminate core principles of normative theory. Welfarismmin presents a pro-number position. The article first outlines Taurek’s original argument. It then examines non-welfarist responses and explains why they remain unsatisfactory. Finally, it identifies the main shortcomings of the hybrid welfarismmin approach and suggests a possible alternative for more adequately addressing the Taurek problem.
    Found 1 week, 1 day ago on PhilSci Archive
  12. 828264.853649
    Tarot is widely disdained as a way of finding things out. Critics claim it is bunk or—worse— a wretched scam. This disdain misunderstands both tarot and the activity of finding thing out. I argue that tarot is an excellent tool for inquiry. It initiates and structures percipient conversation and contemplation about important, challenging, and deep topics. It galvanises creative attention, especially towards inward-looking, introspective inquiry and openminded, collaborative inquiry with others. Tarot can cultivate virtues like epistemic playfulness and cognitive dexterity.
    Found 1 week, 2 days ago on Georgi Gardiner's site
  13. 839856.853669
    Very short summary: This is a two-part essay on the crisis of contemporary liberalism. I argue that this crisis reflects the growing influence of a conception of the political as a praxis that is beyond human rationality and reason. …
    Found 1 week, 2 days ago on The Archimedean Point
  14. 1007517.853683
    It is commonplace to note that libertarians about free will face a compatibility problem of their own. Indeterminism appears to be at odds with freedom rather than a condition for it, since it injects only chance or luck into the etiology of action. This problem, the luck problem, is widely regarded as unique to libertarians. However, this is false. Compatibilists face the same luck problem that animates libertarians. In this paper, I set out what the luck problem is and why compatibilists face it too. I then show that the most natural resources one might think a compatibilist should use to solve the problem are insufficient. I close with a proposal for compatibilists.
    Found 1 week, 4 days ago on Michael S. Mckenna's site
  15. 1107260.853701
    Imagine living in a society where most people (at least in the privileged classes) regularly participate in perpetuating a moral atrocity—slavery, say, or factory farming; any practice you’re deeply appalled by will do. …
    Found 1 week, 5 days ago on Good Thoughts
  16. 1258927.853714
    For Raz, “the fundamental point about authority [is that] it removes the decision from one person to another.” It is a good question why you should allow someone else to decide for you what you are to do. One plausible response is to observe that, under the right conditions, by allowing someone else to decide for you, you are more likely to do what you ought to do anyway than if you decide what to do for yourself. That, in a nutshell, is the diagnosis of and solution to the problem of authority that Raz offers us. I agree that Raz raises an important question, and I shall not dispute his answer. I do maintain that there is a narrower and perhaps less tractable problem with “authority” that Raz misses— a problem about obedience. My aim is to bring this concern into clearer focus.
    Found 2 weeks ago on David Owens's site
  17. 1436602.853728
    Political meritocracy is the idea that political institutions should aim to empower those people who are particularly well-suited to rule. This article surveys recent literature in democratic theory that argues on behalf of institutional arrangements that aim to realize the ideal of political meritocracy. We detail two prominent families of meritocratic proposals: nondemocratic meritocracy and weighted voting. We then describe and briefly evaluate five potentially important criticisms of political meritocracy related to the coherence of merit as an ideal, the demographic objection, rent-seeking, political inequality, and social peace. We also consider the key ways in which existing electoral democracies create spaces for institutionally meritocratic forms. Finally, we highlight the importance of exploring institutional innovations that allow democracies to effectively incorporate expertise without, at the same time, becoming vulnerable to the criticisms of political meritocracy that we discuss.
    Found 2 weeks, 2 days ago on Dimitri Landa's site
  18. 1674700.853751
    I was delighted that Good Thoughts passed 5,000 (mostly free) subscribers a few months ago: that’s at least 4,800 more people interested in moral philosophy than I was expecting! (And it continues to grow at ~100 new subscribers each month, with no sign of a cap as yet.) …
    Found 2 weeks, 5 days ago on Good Thoughts
  19. 1703989.853765
    Have the points in Stephen Senn’s guest post fully come across? Responding to comments from diverse directions has given Senn a lot of work, for which I’m very grateful. But I say we should not leave off the topic just yet. …
    Found 2 weeks, 5 days ago on D. G. Mayo's blog
  20. 1764037.85378
    Most recent theorists take social norms to arise from certain attitudes, such as expectations on others, perhaps along with conforming practices. Challenging this view, we argue that social norms are instead grounded in a social norming process: an (often non-verbal) social communication process that institutes or ‘makes’ the norm. We present different versions of a process-based account of social norms and social normativity. The process-based view brings social norms closer to legal norms, by taking social norms to arise through ‘expressive acts’, just as some laws and contracts arise through acts of voting or signing, not through mere attitudes. Social norms should be distinguished from social pressures, which often co-exist with social norms but are caused by attitudes.
    Found 2 weeks, 6 days ago on Kai Spiekermann's site
  21. 1771390.853797
    I’m so frustrated by low-decoupling academics who refuse to acknowledge basic evaluative facts (like that, all else equal, it’s better to have smarter, healthier children) because they’re terrified of what they—mistakenly!—imagine to be the implications. …
    Found 2 weeks, 6 days ago on Good Thoughts
  22. 1841335.853817
    There is large consensus across clinical research that feelings of worthlessness (FOW) are one of the highest risk factors for a patient’s depression becoming suicidal. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of this empirical relationship from a phenomenological perspective. I propose that there are purely reactive and pervasive forms of FOW. Subsequently, I present a phenomenological demonstration for how and why it is pervasive FOW that pose a direct suicidal threat. I then outline criteria, contingent upon empirical verification, by which clinicians can more confidently identify when a patient’s FOW place them at high risk of suicide.
    Found 3 weeks ago on PhilSci Archive
  23. 1968388.853831
    A confession: at any given moment, I am liable to know the amount of money in my savings account, my uber rating, my Wordle scores from the last five days, and my h-index on Google scholar. For at least three months after publication, and probably more like six, I would be able to tell you the goodreads rating of my latest book. …
    Found 3 weeks, 1 day ago on More to Hate
  24. 2059305.853844
    What makes a group an epistemic and moral agent? In this article, I argue the answer is: its decision-making procedures. The article begins by describing and motivating three popular positions in theories of group agency: functionalism, summativism, and organizationism. It explains how these three positions play out within Jessica Brown’s recent book Groups As Epistemic and Moral Agents. I explain how a focus on decision-making procedures can clarify and unify Brown’s account. Ultimately, the article proposes ‘proceduralism’ about group agency: we should figure out whether a group is an epistemic and moral agent by asking what decision-making procedures it has; group decision- making procedures are necessary and sufficient for group agency; and the group decision-making procedures explain group agency.
    Found 3 weeks, 2 days ago on Stephanie Collins's site
  25. 2187392.853859
    In this contribution I will start in Section 2 by introducing epistemic competence. I will stress that like Bussmann, I regard it as fundamental that people in a democratic society possess epistemic competence and that it would be important to teach epistemic competence at school. In Section 3 I show that even for countries where the epidemiological situation is roughly the same or very similar such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland, there are often very different recommendations concerning vaccinations. In Section 4 I will identify and discuss five rational reasons that can alone or in combination lead to different vaccine recommendations. Finally, section 5 will reflect on epistemic competence and vaccine recommendations. In particular, I will point out that different vaccine recommendations are an example where students can develop epistemic competence. Further, I will stress that different vaccine recommendations are an example where epistemic competence among the general population is desirable; if it is not present, this can lead to science scepticism and mistrust about science.
    Found 3 weeks, 4 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  26. 2276760.853872
    What are the conditions under which an agent is morally responsible for some action that they have performed? Put another way, and acknowledging that this rephrasing might be contentious, what are the conditions under which it would be appropriate to praise or blame the agent for something they have done? (Strawson 1962; Wallace 1998; Coates & Tognazzini 2013). An account of moral responsibility supplies answers to these questions. (See the entry on “Moral Responsibility” ). Most theorists agree that moral responsibility requires satisfying at least two core conditions. The first is a control condition; the agent must have the right sort of control over what they do (Dennett 1984; Fischer & Ravizza 1998; Shepherd 2014).
    Found 3 weeks, 5 days ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  27. 2276780.853885
    Experimental jurisprudence (or “X-Jur”) addresses questions of jurisprudence or legal philosophy by complementing traditional philosophical analysis with empirical methods. Often those methods include survey experiments that examine laypeople’s intuitions about legal-philosophical thought experiments and concepts of legal significance (e.g., causation, intent, reasonableness). Other times, experimental jurisprudence focuses on the cognitive processes underlying legal reasoning. This entry reviews representative work in experimental jurisprudence and discusses major objections and critiques.
    Found 3 weeks, 5 days ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  28. 2324675.853898
    Very short summary: This essay argues that local governance is less prone to succumb to populism because, compared to national politics, citizens are more empowered and monitoring of elected officials is easier. …
    Found 3 weeks, 5 days ago on The Archimedean Point
  29. 2355783.853911
    Let’s say we want to identify effective strategies for multi-agent games like the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma or more complex environments (like the kind of environments in Melting Pot). Then tournaments are a natural approach: let people submit strategies, and then play all these strategies against each other in a round-robin tournament. …
    Found 3 weeks, 6 days ago on The Universe from an Intentional Stance
  30. 2391501.853926
    Greetings from Kyoto, Japan! Here’s an excerpt from Unbeatable’s last chapter. [from Chapter 6: Four Candid Conversations] This is the dialogue chapter, where I argue against a wide variety of fictional archetypes. …
    Found 3 weeks, 6 days ago on Bet On It