Karen Jones (Melbourne), "Rational Self-Governance as Trajectory Dependent"
Other
What is the role and authority of conscious reflective judgment in our rational self-governance, given it plays such a small part in deciding what to do and what to believe? In this paper, I defend a new model of rational self-governance according which whether an act or belief counts as an…
Christian List (LSE): Where do preference come from?
Other
Abstract: Rational choice theory analyzes how an agent can rationally act, given his or her preferences, but says little about where those preferences come from. Instead, preferences are usually assumed to be fixed and exogenously given. We introduce a framework for conceptualizing preference…
Patrick Dunleavy (London School of Economics), "Getting Better at Measuring Political Power"
Other
The concept of power has long been considered problematic, and is now unfashionable in analytic political science. This paper seeks to revive its use as a quantitative concept by formulating a measure of ‘organized power’ (excluding charismatic power and force) that will carry wider agreement than…
John Broome (Oxford), "Rationality Through Reasoning"
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I shall examine the nature of reasoning as something we do, the criteria of correct reasoning, and how reasoning can bring us to satisfy requirements of rationality. As an application, I shall explain how correct reasoning can bring us to intend to do what we believe we ought to do.
Clas Weber (ANU): Centered Communication
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Abstract: According to an attractive account of belief, our beliefs have centered (i.e. de se) content. According to an attractive account of communication, we utter sentences to express our beliefs and share them with our audience. However, the two accounts are in conflict: if our utterances…
Andrew Biro (Arcadia University), "The Good Life in the Greenhouse? Democratic Citizenship as Climate Change Strategy"
Other
With atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 390 ppm and rising, and the Kyoto Protocol set to expire, recent campaigns by high-profile climate change activists have drawn attention to rapidly closing windows, both climatological and political. At the same time, both academics and activists are…