A partition $\{C_i\}_{i\in I}$ of a Boolean algebra $\cS$ in a probability measure space $(\cS,p)$ is called a Reichenbachian common cause system for the correlated pair $A,B$ of events in $\cS$ if any two elements in the partition behave like a Reichenbachian common cause and its complement, the cardinality of the index set $I$ is called the size of the common cause system. It is shown that given any correlation in $(\cS,p)$, and given any finite size $n>2$, the probability space (...) $(\cS,p)$ can be embedded into a larger probability space in such a manner that the larger space contains a Reichenbachian common cause system of size $n$ for the correlation. It also is shown that every totally ordered subset in the partially ordered set of all partitions of \cS$ contains only one Reichenbachian common cause system. Some open problems concerning Reichenbachian common cause systems are formulated. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence systems are becoming increasingly autonomous and will soon be able to make decisions on their own about what to do, AI researchers have started to talk about the need to align AI with human values. The AI ‘value alignment problem’ faces two kinds of challenges—a technical and a normative one—which are interrelated. The technical challenge deals with the question of how to encode human values in artificial intelligence. The normative challenge is associated with two questions: “Which values (...) or whose values should artificial intelligence align with?” My concern is that AI developers underestimate the difficulty of answering the normative question. They hope that we can easily identify the purposes we really desire and that they can focus on the design of those objectives. But how are we to decide which objectives or values to induce in AI, given that there is a plurality of values and moral principles and that our everyday life is full of moral disagreements? In my paper I will show that although it is not realistic to reach an agreement on what we, humans, really want as people value different things and seek different ends, it may be possible to agree on what we do not want to happen, considering the possibility that intelligence, equal to our own, or even exceeding it, can be created. I will argue for pluralism which is compatible with objectivism. In spite of the fact that there is no uniquely best solution to every moral problem, it is still possible to identify which answers are wrong. And this is where we should begin the value alignment of AI. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to give a sharp definition of Bell's notion of local causality. To this end, first we unfold a framework, called local physical theory, integrating probabilistic and spatiotemporal concepts. Formulating local causality within this framework and classifying local physical theories by whether they obey local primitive causality---a property rendering the dynamics of the theory causal, we then investigate what is needed for a local physical theory, with or without local primitive causality, to be locally causal. (...) Finally, comparing Bell's local causality with the Common Cause Principles and relating both to the Bell inequalities we find a nice parallelism: Bell inequalities cannot be derived neither from local causality nor from a common cause unless the local physical theory is classical or the common cause is commuting, respectively. (shrink)

Alm, Margit Review of: Growing for broke: How the government has sold out to private interests, by Peter North, Published in 2016 by Tomorrow Press, PO Box 238, Berwick, Vic. 3806 ISBN 978-168418977-9.

This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a (...) substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca. (shrink)

Background: Education can be taken as a key factor in transmission of a value tradition in healthcare. In professional and educational contexts, transmission of values appears to be a kind of guarantee for an occupational group’s professional identity, awareness and ethical integrity. Given the positives of such transmission of value traditions, one can also pay attention to conflicts between the professional tradition and individuals who are brought into that tradition. Objectives: How does mediation of value tradition in healthcare education appear (...) out of the students’ perspective based on their own narratives? Research design and participants: Students’ texts were analysed through a combination of contrastive discourse analysis and sociohistorical description and then evaluated from an ethical perspective. Data were collected from the annual electronic feedback given by students after their clinical practice at a University Hospital. Ethical considerations: Organizational approval was received. Information about the voluntary nature of participation was a part of the feedback tool. Findings: The analysis points to the fact that there is a definite theme in the students’ experiences that both the previous research has neglected and that stands in conflict with the current tradition of healthcare education in Finland. That theme can be summarized in the experience of ‘losing one’s identity’, and it is expressed in a request to experience of ‘losing one’s identity’ and it is expressed in a request to have a right to ‘use one’s own name’ also as a healthcare professional. Discussion and conclusion: Being addressed by one’s name is to make the person directly involved and responsible, realizing that that person’s perspective is of importance to the way the world is. We argue that this theme (my name) is of ethical importance and could have empowering potentiality when used in an ethically sound way. (shrink)

This book collects research papers on the philosophical foundations of probability, causality, spacetime and quantum theory. The papers are related to talks presented in six subsequent workshops organized by The Budapest-Kraków Research Group on Probability, Causality and Determinism. Coverage consists of three parts. Part I focuses on the notion of probability from a general philosophical and formal epistemological perspective. Part II applies probabilistic considerations to address causal questions in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Part III investigates the question of indeterminism (...) in spacetime theories. It also explores some related questions, such as decidability and observation. The contributing authors are all philosophers of science with a strong background in mathematics or physics. They believe that paying attention to the finer formal details often helps avoiding pitfalls that exacerbate the philosophical problems that are in the center of focus of contemporary research. The papers presented here help make explicit the mathematical-structural assumptions that underlie key philosophical argumentations. This formally rigorous and conceptually precise approach will appeal to researchers and philosophers as well as mathematicians and statisticians. (shrink)

This article focuses on healthcare ethics discussions in Estonia. We begin with an overview of the reform policies that the healthcare institutions have undergone since the region regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The principles of distributing healthcare services and questions regarding just what ethical healthcare should look like have received abundant coverage in the national media. An example of this is the exceptionally public case of V—a woman with leukemia whose expensive drugs the national health insurance fund (...) refused to compensate. In our subsequent discussion, we focus on a grand-scale local healthcare and research project—the Estonian Genome Project—that attempts to include 1 million DNA samples into one database. (shrink)

Alm, Margit Review of: Countdown: Our last, best hope for a future on earth?, by Alan Weisman, First Published in the US by Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group ISBN 978-1-4087-0267-3.

I will argue that the Peres-Mermin square does not necessarily rule out a value-definite (deterministic) noncontextual hidden variable model if the operators are not given a physical interpretation satisfying the following two requirements: (i) each operator is uniquely realized by a single physical measurement; (ii) commuting operators are realized by simultaneous measurements. To underpin this claim, I will construct three hidden variable models for three different physical realizations of the Peres-Mermin square: one violating (i), another violating (ii), and a third (...) one violating both (i) and (ii). (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Internistenkongress von 1949 war Anlass und Arena einer breit wahrgenommenen Kontroverse zu epistemologischen Fragen der Psychosomatischen Medizin. Der Beitrag verortet zunächst den Kongress in der Nachkriegsgeschichte und zeichnet die Verlaufslinien der Debatte nach. Dabei werden sowohl die Positionen der Sprecher der Psychosomatischen Medizin – Viktor von Weizsäcker und Alexander Mitscherlich – als auch diejenige von Paul Martini, der auf Basis seiner Methodologie klinischer Forschung grundsätzliche Kritik äußerte, rekonstruiert. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die jeweils unterschiedlichen Auffassungen von Kausalität, Evidenz (...) und Subjektivität herausgearbeitet und kontextualisiert. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt hierbei auf dem konkreten und expliziten Gebrauch dieser Begriffe bei Martini. Schließlich zeige ich, dass diese Ereignisse im Jahr 1949 als Kulmination einer fortdauernden Kontroverse über wissenschaftliche Evidenz in der klinischen Medizin gelesen werden können, die sich mit ihren Beteiligten und Bezugsebenen über mehrere Jahrzehnte erstreckte. (shrink)

This article challenges hierarchical and binary thinking in constitutional theory, and offers an alternative basis that draws on multidimensionality. The recognition that constitutionalism is a collection of ingrained tensions between competing forces and conceptual bases is applied in a study of the executive branch, a field that is especially lacking in general theory. The existing research of the executive is almost entirely concerned with specific legal systems and is typically normative; descriptively, references to puzzles and ambiguity offer an inadequate, a-theoretical (...) basis for the understanding of the nature of the executive. Rejecting three alternative models, two of them hierarchical, the third, binary, I reach the internal tension model, which acknowledges the internal irresolvable tension between the executive’s subservience to law and its dominance beyond law, which underlies executive action. The article addresses the ways law can, and does, maintain this internal tension, and ends with some comments on future research directions. (shrink)

Muscle synergies reflect the presence of a common neural input to multiple muscles. Steering small sets of synergies is commonly believed to simplify the control of complex motor tasks like walking and running. When these locomotor patterns emerge, it is likely that synergies emerge as well. We hence hypothesized that in children learning to run the number of accompanying synergies increases and that some of the synergies’ activities display a temporal shift related to a reduced stance phase as observed in (...) adults. We investigated the development of locomotion in 23 children aged 2–9 years of age and compared them with seven young adults. Muscle activity of 15 bilateral leg, trunk, and arm muscles, ground reaction forces, and kinematics were recorded during comfortable treadmill walking and running, followed by a muscle synergy analysis. We found that toddlers and preschoolers utilize a “walk-run strategy” when learning to run: they managed the fastest speeds on the treadmill by combining double support and flight phases. In particular the activity duration of the medial gastrocnemius muscle was weakly correlated with age. The number of synergies across groups and conditions needed to cover sufficient data variation ranged between four and eight. The number of synergies tended to be smaller in toddlers than it did in preschoolers and school-age children but the adults had the lowest number for both conditions. Against our expectations, the age groups did not differ significantly in the timing or duration of synergies. We believe that the increase in the number of muscle synergies in older children relates to motor learning and exploration. The ability to run with a FP is clearly associated with an increase in the number of muscle synergies. (shrink)

John Chrysostom’s De sacerdotio offers a reordering of social relationships that can be seen in comparison with the life and writings of Gregory of Nazianzus.Chrysostom understands that the priest’s relationship with Christ carries the priest above the laws of relationship governing earthly society, such as in friendship and family. By emphasizing the priesthood’s transcendent character even further than what Gregory had done, Chrysostom frees the priest from the pressures of constricting social laws so that the priest may live according to (...) Christ alone. Chrysostom’s dialogue thus prepares us to encounter his own ministry, known by both admirers and detractors for flagrant disregard of elite society’s expectations. (shrink)

This reply focusses on three aspects: advantages and disadvantages of our proposed ‘cooperative entry certificates’ for the countries of origin, for the migrants, and for the host countries. It analyzes in what respects our proposal can be improved based on the valuable points made by the commentators. In addition, the question of how to deal with winners and losers within the three groups is discussed.

Open source software production is a successful new innovation model which disproves that only private ownership of intellectual property rights fosters innovations. It is analyzed here under which conditions the open source model may be successful in general. We show that a complex interplay of situational, motivational, and institutional factors have to be taken into account to understand how to manage the ‘tragedy of the commons’ as well as the ‘tragedy of the anticommons’. It is argued that the success of (...) this new innovation model is greatly facilitated by a well balanced portfolio of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, low costs for contributors and governance mechanisms that do not crowd out intrinsic motivation. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with analyzing transformations in the development, marketing, prescription, and access issues of pharmaceuticals, paying special attention to a variety of ethical and social aspects. A major focus of the article is on pharmacogenetics – a rapidly developing discipline which in the near future might well have a major effect on both drug development and clinical medicine.

A partition $\{C_i\}_{i\in I}$ of a Boolean algebra Ω in a probability measure space (Ω, p) is called a Reichenbachian common cause system for the correlation between a pair A,B of events in Ω if any two elements in the partition behave like a Reichenbachian common cause and its complement; the cardinality of the index set I is called the size of the common cause system. It is shown that given any non-strict correlation in (Ω, p), and given any finite (...) natural number n > 2, the probability space (Ω,p) can be embedded into a larger probability space in such a manner that the larger space contains a Reichenbachian common cause system of size n for the correlation. (shrink)

Auf die Frage nach der Rationalität des Glaubens hat William P. Alston, einer der prominentesten Vertreter der Analytischen Religionsphilosophie, eine zeitgemäße, aber auch spannungsreiche Antwort vorgelegt. Alstons Ansatz wird in diesem Buch systematisch aufgearbeitet und damit einer breiteren Rezeption im deutschsprachigen Raum zugänglich gemacht. Die Analyse der Autorin Margit Wasmaier macht deutlich, dass Alston angesichts der Frage, ob man religiöse Überzeugungen heute überhaupt noch begründet vertreten kann, einen pragmatischen Weg einschlägt, ohne aber den Standpunkt eines metaphysischen Realismus zu verlassen.

Whereas in the 1970s early bioethicists believed that bioethics is an arena for the application of philosophical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, and natural law thinking, contemporary policy-oriented bioethicists seem rather to be keen on framing ethical issues through political ideologies. Bioethicists today are often labeled “liberal” or “communitarian,” referring to their different understandings of the relationship between the individual and society. Liberal individualism, with its conceptual base of autonomy, dignity, and privacy, enjoyed a long period of dominance in bioethics, but (...) it has increasingly come under attack from ideologies promoting a more salient role for concepts of solidarity, community, and public interest. (shrink)

A condition is formulated in terms of the probabilities of two pairs of correlated events in a classical probability space which is necessary for the two correlations to have a single (Reichenbachian) common-cause and it is shown that there exists pairs of correlated events probabilities of which violate the necessary condition. It is concluded that different correlations do not in general have a common common-cause. It is also shown that this conclusion remains valid even if one weakens slightly Reichenbach's definition (...) of common-cause. The significance of the difference between common-causes and common common-causes is emphasized from the perspective of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

This essay has two main claims about EPR’s Reality Criterion. First, we claim that the application of the Reality Criterion makes an essential difference between the EPR argument and Einstein’s later arguments against quantum mechanics. We show that while the EPR argument, making use of the Reality Criterion, does derive that certain interpretations of quantum mechanics are incomplete, Einstein’s later arguments, making no use of the Reality Criterion, do not prove incompleteness, but rather point to the inadequacy of the Copenhagen (...) interpretation. We take this fact as an indication that the Reality Criterion is a crucial, indispensable component of the incompleteness argument(s). The second claim is more substantive. We argue that the Reality Criterion is a special case of the Common Cause Principle. Finally, we relate this proposal to Tim Maudlin’s recent assertion that the Reality Criterion is an analytic truth. (shrink)

It is shown that, given any finite set of pairs of random events in a Boolean algebra which are correlated with respect to a fixed probability measure on the algebra, the algebra can be extended in such a way that the extension contains events that can be regarded as common causes of the correlations in the sense of Reichenbach's definition of common cause. It is shown, further, that, given any quantum probability space and any set of commuting events in it (...) which are correlated with respect to a fixed quantum state, the quantum probability space can be extended in such a way that the extension contains common causes of all the selected correlations, where common cause is again taken in the sense of Reichenbachs definition. It is argued that these results very strongly restrict the possible ways of disproving Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

Bell inequalities, understood as constraints between classical conditional probabilities, can be derived from a set of assumptions representing a common causal explanation of classical correlations. A similar derivation, however, is not known for Bell inequalities in algebraic quantum field theories establishing constraints for the expectation of specific linear combinations of projections in a quantum state. In the paper we address the question as to whether a ‘common causal justification’ of these non-classical Bell inequalities is possible. We will show that although (...) the classical notion of common causal explanation can readily be generalized for the non-classical case, the Bell inequalities used in quantum theories cannot be derived from these non-classical common causes. Just the opposite is true: for a set of correlations there can be given a non-classical common causal explanation even if they violate the Bell inequalities. This shows that the range of common causal explanations in the non-classical case is wider than that restricted by the Bell inequalities. (shrink)

Neoliberalism has come to be understood not only as an economic system, but as a mode of existence that understands the self as primarily the bearer of human capital. This paper contrasts the neoliberal ideal of selfhood with Kierkegaard’s notion of the self as developed in The Sickness unto Death. Using Kierkegaard’s typology of despair as an analytical framework, I argue that the neoliberal subject displays an impoverished grasp of the various elements that, for Kierkegaard, are constitutive of the self, (...) and shows serious deficiencies in its understanding of what it means to live a meaningful life. (shrink)

In the paper it will be shown that Reichenbach’s Weak Common Cause Principle is not valid in algebraic quantum field theory with locally finite degrees of freedom in general. Namely, for any pair of projections A, B supported in spacelike separated double cones ${\mathcal{O}}_{a}$ and ${\mathcal{O}}_{b}$ , respectively, a correlating state can be given for which there is no nontrivial common cause (system) located in the union of the backward light cones of ${\mathcal{O}}_{a}$ and ${\mathcal{O}}_{b}$ and commuting with the both (...) A and B. Since noncommuting common cause solutions are presented in these states the abandonment of commutativity can modulate this result: noncommutative Common Cause Principles might survive in these models. (shrink)