In this important book, Ellery Eells explores and refines philosophical conceptions of probabilistic causality. In a probabilistic theory of causation, causes increase the probability of their effects rather than necessitate their effects in the ways traditional deterministic theories have specified. Philosophical interest in this subject arises from attempts to understand population sciences as well as indeterminism in physics. Taking into account issues involving spurious correlation, probabilistic causal interaction, disjunctive causal factors, and temporal ideas, Professor Eells advances the analysis of (...) what it is for one factor to be a positive causal factor for another. A salient feature of the book is a theory of token level probabilistic causation in which the evolution of the probability of a later event from an earlier event is central. This will be a book of crucial significance to philosophers of science and metaphysicians; it will also prove stimulating to many economists, psychologists, and physicists. (shrink)

To clarify and illuminate the place of probability in science Ellery Eells and James H. Fetzer have brought together some of the most distinguished philosophers ...

In past years, the traditional Bayesian theory of rational decision making, based on subjective calculations of expected utility, has faced powerful attack from philosophers such as David Lewis and Brian Skyrms, who advance an alternative causal decision theory. The test they present for the Bayesian is exemplified in the decision problem known as 'Newcomb's paradox' and in related decision problems and is held to support the prescriptions of the causal theory. As well as his conclusions, the concepts and methods of (...) Professor Eells introduces in the course of his analyses have extensive implications, not solely for probability theorists narrowly conceived, but for economists, statisticians and psychologists concerned with decision making and the employment of Bayesian principles. They and their students will, in addition, find the early chapters of great use as a background and introduction to the subject as a whole. (shrink)

After clarifying the probabilistic conception of causality suggested by Good (1961-2), Suppes (1970), Cartwright (1979), and Skyrms (1980), we prove a sufficient condition for transitivity of causal chains. The bearing of these considerations on the units of selection problem in evolutionary theory and on the Newcomb paradox in decision theory is then discussed.

Several forms of symmetry in degrees of evidential support areconsidered. Some of these symmetries are shown not to hold in general. This has implications for the adequacy of many measures of degree ofevidential support that have been proposed and defended in the philosophical literature.

Bayesian epistemology suggests various ways of measuring the support that a piece of evidence provides a hypothesis. Such measures are defined in terms of a subjective probability assignment, pr, over propositions entertained by an agent. The most standard measure (where “H” stands for “hypothesis” and “E” stands for “evidence”) is: the difference measure: d(H,E) = pr(H/E) - pr(H).0 This may be called a “positive (probabilistic) relevance measure” of confirmation, since, according to it, a piece of evidence E qualitatively confirms a (...) hypothesis H if and only if pr(H/E) > pr(H), where qualitative disconfirmation is characterized by replacing “>” with “ “ with “=”. Other more or less standard positive relevance measures that have been proposed are: the log-ratio measure: r(H,E) = log[pr(H/E)/pr(H)] and the log-likelihood-ratio measure: l(H,E) = log[pr(E/H)/pr(E/~H)]. (shrink)

Business ethics, as it is understood and practised generally, lacks a component of radicality. As part of the contemporary ‘return to ethics’ it displays an undesirable conservatism and blocks off possibilities for systemic alterity. I argue that a normal and ‘apologetic’ business ethics should therefore be supplemented with a radical or utopian business ethics. Put differently, business ethics should not only contribute to more responsible business practices, more morally sensitive business managers and more ethical organisational cultures, but should also facilitate (...) social hope via hermeneutic strategies aimed at changing the way we think about ourselves, our economies and the roles and responsibilities of business as such. (shrink)

This collection of essays is on the relation between probabilities, especially conditional probabilities, and conditionals. It provides negative results which sharply limit the ways conditionals can be related to conditional probabilities. There are also positive ideas and results which will open up areas of research. The collection is intended to honour Ernest W. Adams, whose seminal work is largely responsible for creating this area of inquiry. As well as describing, evaluating, and applying Adams's work the contributions extend his ideas in (...) directions he may or may not have anticipated, but that he certainly inspired. In addition to a wide range of philosophers of science, the volume should interest computer scientists and linguists. (shrink)

I argue that to the extent to which philosophical theories of objective probability have offered theoretically adequateconceptions of objective probability (in connection with such desiderata as causal and explanatory significance, applicability to single cases, etc.), they have failed to satisfy amethodological standard — roughly, a requirement to the effect that the conception offered be specified with the precision appropriate for a physical interpretation of an abstract formal calculus and be fully explicated in terms of concepts, objects or phenomena understood independently (...) of the idea of physical probability. The significance of this, and of the suggested methodological standard, is then briefly discussed. (shrink)

This article reviews the 2017 English translation of Achille Mbembe’s book _Critique of Black Reason._ It suggests that a key to understanding the work concerns the theme of the double, for instance, the critique of the double discourse on Blackness which explains the title of the book. Despite some passages of the text being overly poetic and difficult to understand, Mbembe’s critical contribution in this work, to not only the philosophical debate on otherness but also critical race theory, is the (...) attempt to rethink the relation of the particular and the universal, or in this instance Africa and the world, in order to think more critically about the responsibility of repairing the dignity of humanity in thinking our shared world beyond race and racism. (shrink)

In a time when controlling the spread of the virus in the United States requires drastic measures to limit the number of people coming in and out of intensive care units (ICU), the presence of prison guards is not justified. Transfers from American prisons to hospitals have increased dramatically during the pandemic and with each prison patient comes a cohort of prison guards. The theoretical benefits of having prison guards–such as preventing escape, protecting staff, and stopping unwanted visitation–are minimal: critically (...) ill prisoners are chained to their bed and pose minimal threat to the staff or flight risk. Unwanted visitation is already heavily regulated by the hospital. The risks of having more people in the ICU are significant during the pandemic: more potential exposures for staff, other patients, and the guards themselves. In order to limit the spread of the virus, the number of prison guards in the ICU should be limited. (shrink)

After a brief presentation of evidential decision theory, causal decision theory, and Newcomb type prima facie counterexamples to the evidential theory, three kinds of "metatickle" defenses of the evidential theory are discussed. Each has its weaknesses, but one of them seems stronger than the other two. The weaknesses of the best of the three, and the intricacy of metatickle analysis, does not constitute an advantage of causal decision theory over the evidential theory, however. It is argued, by way of an (...) example, that causal decision theory also stands in need of a metatickle defense. (shrink)

It is possible for a causal factor to raise the probability of a second factor in some situations while lowering the probability of the second factor in other situations. Must a genuine cause always raise the probability of a genuine effect of it? When it does not always do so, an "interaction" with some third factor may be the reason. I discuss causal interaction from the perspectives of Giere's counterfactual characterization of probabilistic causal connection (1979, 1980) and the "contextual unanimity" (...) model developed by, among others, Cartwright (1979) and Skyrms (1980). I argue that the contextual unanimity theory must exercise care, in a new way that seems to have gone unnoticed, in order to adequately accommodate the phenomenon, and that the counterfactual theory must be substantially revised; although it will still, pending clarification of a second kind of revision, be unable to accommodate a kind of interaction exemplified in cases like those described by Sober (1982). (shrink)

John Dupré (1984) has recently criticized the theory of probabilistic causality developed by, among others, Good (1961-62), Suppes (1970), Cartwright (1979), and Skyrms (1980). He argues that there is a tension or incompatibility between one of its central requirements for the presence of a causal connection, on the one hand, and a feature of the theory pointed out by Elliott Sober and me (1983), on the other. He also argues that the requirement just alluded to should be given up. I (...) defend the theory against Dupré's criticisms and conclude with comments on Dupré's appraisal of the bearing of his arguments on the nature of probabilistic causal laws. (shrink)

One of us (Eells 1982) has defended traditional evidential decision theory against prima facie Newcomb counterexamples by assuming that a common cause forms a conjunctive fork with its joint effects. In this paper, the evidential theory is defended without this assumption. The suggested rationale shows that the theory's assumptions are not about the nature of causality, but about the nature of rational deliberation. These presuppositions are weak enough for the argument to count as a strong justification of the evidential theory.

Why do artists, poets, philosophers, writers, and others who are usually classified as intellectuals leave the ivory tower to "dirty their hands" in the political arena? In an effort to illuminate the intellectual's struggle to come to grips with the issues raised by political involvement, David Schalk examines the life and thought of five intellectuels engagés in France during the period between 1920 and 1945. From communist to fascist, these figures—Paul Nizan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Mounier, Julien Benda, and Robert (...) Brasillach—cover the full political spectrum, and Professor Schalk studies their diverse reactions to the social, political, and economic tensions of the interwar period. Broadly defining "engagement" as political involvement that is voluntary, conscious, and freely chosen, usually by intellectuals, the author poses the intellectual's dilemma in the following terms: "When we are engagé," he writes, "we fear that we are debasing our highest values; when we are not, we worry that we have become, in Paul Nizan's trenchant phrase, mere chiens de garde [watchdogs]." He then investigates the origins and the popularization of the concept of engagement in the early 1930s, the arguments used to denounce it and to defend it, its different manifestations, and finally its effects on the socio-political actuality of the world. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This book offers a clear and highly readable introduction to the ethical and social-political philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dale E. Miller argues for a "utopian" reading of Mill's utilitarianism. He analyses Mill's views on happiness and goes on to show the practical, social and political implications that can be drawn from his utilitarianism, especially in relation to the construction of morality, individual freedom, democratic reform, and economic organization. By highlighting the utopian thinking which lies at the heart of Mill's (...) theories, Miller shows that rather than allowing for well-being for the few, Mill believed that a society must do everything in its power to see to it that each individual can enjoy a genuinely happy life if the happiness of its members is to be maximized. Miller provides a cogent and careful account of the main arguments offered by Mill, considers the critical responses to his work, and assesses its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand the continued importance of Mill's thinking. (shrink)

Popper and Miller argued, in a 1983 paper, that there is no such thing as 'probabilistic inductive support' of hypotheses. They show how to divide a hypothesis into two "parts," where evidence only 'probabilistically supports' the "part" that the evidence 'deductively' implies, and 'probabilistically countersupports' the "rest" of the hypothesis. I argue that by distinguishing between 'support that is purely deductive in nature' and 'support of a deductively implied hypothesis', we can see that their argument fails to establish (in any (...) important way of interpreting it) their conclusion that "all probabilistic support is purely deductive." Their argument is 'not' "completely devastating to the inductive interpretation of the calculus of probability," as claimed. (shrink)

This paper presents a dynamic perspective in which the psychological contract is treated as a structured set of beliefs that are held by individual employees about the mutual obligations of the organization as employer and themselves as employees. This set of beliefs is assumed to produce a state of commitment to the organization in which the employee is willing to accept work roles and tasks offered by the organization, and to carry them out in accordance with certain standards. The dynamic (...) model that is presented can help to explain why the commitment of employees remains relatively stable over time, and why it may suddenly decrease or increase under circumstances that are perceived as critical by the employee. The model assumes that the employee's evaluation of the organization's behavior changes over time, but that the structure of the psychological contract and the associated commitment change only when certain limits are overstepped. This perspective on changes in the psychological contract transforms the concept into a powerful construct that may lead to fruitful research on the dynamics of organization-employee relationships. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 123-124, September 2021.

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

Along with such criteria as truth, comprehensiveness, explanatory adequacy, and simplicity, philosophers of science usually also mention predictive accuracy as a criterion of theory choice. But while philosophers have devoted attention to the problem of the logical structure of scientific prediction, it seems that little attention has been devoted to the difficult question of what precisely constitutes predictive accuracy, at least ‘predictive accuracy’ in the sense in which I will discuss it here.I will in this paper discuss the role of (...) predictive accuracy in theory choice. But before that, I will address the problem of what constitutes predictive accuracy more generally and independently of its role in theory choice. I will approach the problem of predictive accuracy from a pragmaticpoint of view, and then try to assess the role of predictive accuracy in theory choice from that perspective. (shrink)

I defend evidential decision theory and the theory of deliberation-probability dynamics from a recent criticism advanced by Jordan Howard Sobel. I argue that his alleged counterexample to the theories, called the Popcorn Problem is not a genuine counterexample.