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At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 24.5., Bruno Verbeek (Leiden University) will give a presentation titled “Instrumentalism vs. Isolationism, on the appropriateness of special principles of taxation”. The seminar is organised as a joint seminar with the Moral & Political Philosophy Research Seminar series. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To join the seminar, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Is there justice in taxation?

When reading contemporary theories of distributive justice one easily gets the impression that institutional design is merely instrumentally relevant for the implementation of the favored conception of justice. This is especially the case when thinking about the tax regime. For example, Liam Murphy and Tom Nagel in The Myth of Ownership argue that the moral evaluation of a tax regime boils down to assessing whether it is effective and efficient in realizing the preferred overall pattern of distribution. As a result, they claim that there are no special, domain-specific, normative principles for taxation.

In this paper, I discuss four arguments for this negative conclusion and show that these are inconclusive. I also suggest some reasons to believe that the question whether the tax system is just is not exhausted by determining its contribution to a just distribution of burdens and benefits.

Author bio:

Bruno Verbeek is university lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy at Leiden University (Netherlands) since 2003. In 2012 he founded the Centre for Political Philosophy and currently serves as its director. He has published on game-theoretic analyses of social norms, as well as on rational choice accounts of commitment. Currently, he is working on the idea of authority. In addition he has a strong interest in matters of applied economic distributive justice, especially, in the area of taxation.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 17.5., Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena & Reggio Emilia) will give a presentation titled “The Objective Stance and the Boundary Problem”. The seminar is organised as a joint seminar with the Moral & Political Philosophy Research Seminar series. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To join the seminar, please sign up here.

Abstract:

This paper investigates some unexplored ambivalences of Strawson’s distinction between the participant stance marked by reactive attitudes, and the objective stance in which such attitudes are deemed inappropriate. First, it is introduced a distinction between recipient-oriented and agent-oriented reasons for taking the objective stance, which are both practical reasons rooted in the agent’s position. The former category of reasons refers to the recipient’s capacities for moral agency, and the latter to the agent’s interests and concerns. Second, it is shown that taking the objective stance for recipient-oriented reasons (i) is a moral move, which alters one’s normative relation to others; and (ii) it may have severe disempowering effects on others. Third, departing from current debates, this investigation refocuses on cases in which the objective stance is grounded on self-defensive or adversarial reasons. The examination of such cases shows that the objective/participant divide stands behind and organizes the complex dynamics through which moral membership is negotiated. Once agent-oriented reasons are brought into focus, it appears that the divide is contestable and renegotiable: the boundaries of the relevant community can be altered by claiming and reclaiming responsibility. Correspondingly, reactive attitudes should be acknowledged as means and drives of the struggle for moral and political recognition. 

Author bio:

Carla Bagnoli is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena & Reggio Emilia. She specializes in the theory of rational agency and practical rationality, meta-ethics, with a particular interest in issues of normativity, and the role of emotions in practical reasoning and agency. Recently, she has held visiting posts at the universities of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne, ENS Lyon, Oslo, and Oxford. Her articles appear in: Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Synthese, Theoria, Philosophia, and Canadian JP. She edited Morality and the Emotions (Oxford UP 2011), and Constructivism in Ethics (Cambridge UP 2013). Her most recent monograph in Italian concerns responsibility, and she is finishing a short monograph on constructivism (Cambridge UP).

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 10.5., Samuli Reijula (University of Helsinki) will give a presentation titled “Social categories in the making – construction or recruitment?”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Real kinds, both natural and social categories, are characterized by rich inductive potential. They have relatively stable sets of conceptually independent projectable properties. Somewhat surprisingly, even some purely social categories (e.g., ethnicity, gender, political orientation) show such multiple projectability. The article explores the origin of the inductive richness of social categories and concepts. I argue that existing philosophical accounts provide only a partial explanation, and mechanisms of boundary formation and stabilization must be brought into view for a more comprehensive account of inductively rich social categories.

Author bio:

Samuli Reijula is an Academy of Finland research fellow (2020-2025) and a university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. More about him at www.samulireijula.net.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 3.5., Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche (University of Cambridge) will give a presentation titled “Economists and Policy Networks”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

The main topic of the presentation is the influence of economists and economics on policy. While both economics and policy are moving targets, it is hoped that systematic empirical studies of failures and successes to influence can provide elements for a history of relevance. I will first provide a brief overview of the literature on economists and policy in relation to the more recent literature on expertise in general. I will then discuss the concept of policy network, contextualise its uses in political sciences since the 1970’s and its usefulness for the study of three particular episodes: 1) the role of British economists in the Royal Commission on Equal Pay in 1944-46; 2) the role of Phyllis Wallace at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1965-68; and 3) the role of economists in the U.S. comparable worth controversy in the 1980’s. The last part of the presentation will be exploratory. Using ongoing research on the rise of agglomeration economics in the UK policy landscape, I want to delineate if, why, and when a conceptual framework can be a useful tool to research, describe and theorise in the history of economics.

Author bio:

​​Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche is a historian of economics, currently a postdoctoral research associate on the project Expertise Under Pressure. She works mainly on work on the history of discrimination and wages, economic expertise and quantification. More about her at https://cleocz.com/.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 26.4., Sacha Altay (École Normale Supérieure in Paris) will give a presentation titled “Understanding the spread of fake news”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

In spite of the attractiveness of fake news stories, most people are reluctant to share them. Why? In four pre-registered experiments we found that sharing fake news hurt one’s reputation in a way that is difficult to fix, even for politically congruent fake news. However, some fake news stories did reach a wide cultural success. Does it mean that people don’t care about accuracy and were fooled? Not necessarily. In another paper we identified a factor that, alongside accuracy, drives the sharing of true and fake news: the ‘interestingness-if-true’ of a piece of news. In three pre-registered experiments (N = 904) participants were presented with a series of true and fake news and asked to rate the accuracy of the news how interesting the news would be if it were true and how likely they would be to share it. Participants were more willing to share news they found more interesting-if-true as well as news they deemed more accurate. In the end we argue that people may not share news of questionable accuracy by mistake but instead because the news has qualities that compensate for its potential inaccuracy such as being interesting-if-true.

Author bio:

Sacha Altay is completing a PhD in experimental psychology at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Fascinated by (apparently) irrational beliefs, he tries to understand why despite people’s cognitive abilities to resist misinformation, some false beliefs are so widespread. During his PhD Sacha also tested novel communication techniques to correct people’s misperceptions and fight misinformation. He will soon start a postdoctoral position on misinformation and (mis)trust at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 19.4., Salla-Maaria Laaksonen (University of Helsinki) will give a presentation titled “Unconventional communicators in the corona crisis”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

This talk introduces an ongoing research project UnCoCo that investigates how information and stories related to Covid-19 pandemic circulate and are framed in networks of alternative communicators. Thus we are not interested in the communication by government or traditional media, but rather examine how communicators such as social media influencers or anonymous users take part in framing the pandemic. We conceptualize their discourse as legitimacy judgements targeted towards the institutions and communication of official actors such as the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

This presentation focuses on two groups of alternative communicators: networks of alternative experts that emerged and organized online during spring 2020 and an anonymous group of accounts that perform a parody of THL and its key employees on Twitter using the vernacular modalities of online communication.

A published paper of the first case is available here, open access:
https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/19/05/JCOM_1905_2020_A10

More details about the project:
https://blogs.helsinki.fi/uncocoproject/

Author bio:

Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Docent, D.Soc.Sc., is a Postdoctoral Researcher
in the Centre for Consumer Society Research, University of Helsinki. Her research areas are technology, organizations, and new media, including organizational reputation and legitimacy in the hybrid media system, the organization of online social movements, and the use of data and algorithms in organizations. She is also an expert in digital and computational research methods. @jahapaula

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 12.4., Inkeri Koskinen (Tampere University) will give a presentation titled “Participation and Objectivity”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Many philosophers of science have recently argued that extra-academic participation in scientific knowledge production does not threaten scientific objectivity. Quite the contrary: citizen science, participatory projects, transdisciplinary research, and other similar endeavours can even increase the objectivity of the conducted research. Simultaneously, scientists working in fields where such participation is common, have expressed worries about various ways in which it can result in biases. In this paper I clarify how participation can both increase and threaten the objectivity of the conducted research.

Author bio:

Inkeri Koskinen is a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere University and is affiliated with TINT. Her topics of interest are objectivity, diversity in science, values in science, democratisation of scientific knowledge production, transdisciplinarity and the philosophy of the humanities.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 29.3., Harold Kincaid (University of Cape Town) will give a presentation titled “Making Progress on Causal Inference in Economics”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm, Helsinki time (UTC+3).

Please notice that Finland will switch to summer time. The time zone is different from previous seminars.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Enormous progress has been made on causal inference and modeling in areas outside of economics. We now have a full semantics for causality in a number of empirically relevant situations. This semantics is provided by causal graphs and allows provable precise formulation of causal relations and testable deductions from them. The semantics also allows provable rules for sufficient and biasing covariate adjustment and algorithms for deducing causal structure from data. I outline these developments, show how they describe three basic kinds of causal inference situations that standard multiple regression practice in econometrics frequently gets wrong, and show how these errors can be remedied. I also show that instrumental variables, despite claims to the contrary, do not solve these potential errors and are subject to the same morals. I argue both from the logic of elemental causal situations and from simulated data with nice statistical properties and known causal models. I apply these general points to a reanalysis of the Sachs and Warner model and data on resource abundance and growth. I finish with open potentially fruitful questions.

Author bio:

Harold Kincaid is Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town. Early books were Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences (Cambridge 1996) and Individualism and the Unity of Science (Rowman and Littlefield 1997). He is the coeditor of many books, including the OUP Handbooks of Philosophy of Economics, of Social Science and of Political Science (forthcoming) and of the forthcoming A Modern Guide to Philosophy of Economics (Elgar). He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters in the philosophy of science and social science. In addition to his philosophy of science work, Kincaid does work in experimental economics focusing primarily on risk and time attitude elicitation, currently in the context of covid.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 22.3., Uskali Mäki (University of Helsinki) will give a presentation titled “Modelling and functions: within and without”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

As a cognitive activity, modelling can serve a variety of external functions, such as explanation, prediction, exploration, education, design, persuasion, and so on; and each of these comes in numerous possible further variants. The components of modelling, including idealizing assumptions, serve numerous functions within the activity, such as isolating causal mechanisms and securing mathematical tractability. The challenge of decomposition and coordination is to identify these functions and align them with one another; meeting this challenge is the burden of model commentary. All this has consequences for issues such as model evaluation and the sensible locus of truth ascription in modelling. The talk will summarize, expand, and refine my own past work, and will respond to some recent contributions by other philosophers of modelling.

For background reading, see Mäki (2020).

Author bio:

Uskali Mäki is professor emeritus at the University of Helsinki, directing TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science; and a visiting professor at Nankai University, China. Between 2006-2017 he was an Academy professor. In 1995-2006 he was professor of theoretical philosophy at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, directing EIPE [Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics]. He is a former editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology (1995-2005). His current research focuses mainly on the philosophy of economics and on models, scientific realism, interdisciplinarity, and social aspects of science.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 15.3., Judith Favereau (Université Lyon 2) will give a presentation titled “Trapped in paternalism: randomized experiments and poverty”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 2 to 4 pm.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee within the J-PAL, promote the systematic use of randomized field experiments (RFEs) in order to fight poverty. Thus, RFEs tend to shape the policies that can be tested with such an experimental design. These policies are behaviorally oriented, therefore many of them are actually nudging devices. Furthermore, Duflo strengthens the J-PAL’s perspective from libertarian paternalism (e.g. nudges) to what she calls a “democratic paternalism”. My claim in this paper is that J-PAL’s RFEs in failing to access the mechanisms behind the poor behaviors, makes it difficult for J-PAL’s researchers to draw political recommendations, and as such Duflo is smoothly pushed to call for a stronger paternalism. The paper methodologically explains such a shift and highlights potential political and methodological alternatives to randomized field experiments.

Author bio:

Judith Favereau is currently an associate professor in philosophy of economics and history of economic thought at the pluridisciplinary laboratory TRIANGLE in the University Lyon 2. She is also affiliated to TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science. Her topics of interest are: development economics, experimental economics, philosophy of economics and evidence-based policy. Her research focuses on how development economics, experimental economics and evidence-based policy interact together in order to fight poverty, which implies studying the methodology of these sub-fields and their disciplinary transfers. More information about her at her website judithfavereau.wordpress.com.