This paper aims to clarify a debate on philosophical method, and to give a probabilistic argument vindicating armchair philosophy under a wide range of plausible assumptions. The use of intuitions by so-called armchair philosophers has been criticized on empirical grounds. The debate between armchair philosophers and their empirical critics would benefit from greater clarity and precision in our understanding of what it takes for intuition-based approaches to philosophy to make sense. This paper discusses a set of rigorous, probability-based tools for (...) determining what we can and cannot learn from intuitions in various conditions. These tools can tell us whether beliefs can be justified by armchair practices, and what empirical findings would have to show to undermine the use of intuitions in philosophy. Using these tools, the paper shows that armchair philosophy makes sense in a broad range of situations, and that it is quite plausible that we are in those situations at the moment. (shrink)

In the biomedical context, policy makers face a large amount of potentially discordant evidence from different sources. This prompts the question of how this evidence should be aggregated in the interests of best-informed policy recommendations. The starting point of our discussion is Hunter and Williams’ recent work on an automated aggregation method for medical evidence. Our negative claim is that it is far from clear what the relevant criteria for evaluating an evidence aggregator of this (...) sort are. What is the appropriate balance between explicitly coded algorithms and implicit reasoning involved, for instance, in the packaging of input evidence? In short: What is the optimal degree of ‘automation’? On the positive side: We propose the ability to perform an adequate robustness analysis as the focal criterion, primarily because it directs efforts to what is most important, namely, the structure of the algorithm and the appropriate extent of automation. Moreover, where there are resource constraints on the aggregation process, one must also consider what balance between volume of evidence and accuracy in the treatment of individual evidence best facilitates inference. There is no prerogative to aggregate the total evidence available if this would in fact reduce overall accuracy. (shrink)

In the biomedical context, policy makers face a large amount of potentially discordant evidence from different sources. This prompts the question of how this evidence should be aggregated in the interests of best-informed policy recommendations. The starting point of our discussion is Hunter and Williams’ recent work on an automated aggregation method for medical evidence. Our negative claim is that it is far from clear what the relevant criteria for evaluating an evidence aggregator of this (...) sort are. What is the appropriate balance between explicitly coded algorithms and implicit reasoning involved, for instance, in the packaging of input evidence? In short: What is the optimal degree of ‘automation’? On the positive side: We propose the ability to perform an adequate robustness analysis (which depends on the nature of the input variables and parameters of the aggregator) as the focal criterion, primarily because it directs efforts to what is most important, namely, the structure of the algorithm and the appropriate extent of automation. Moreover, where there are resource constraints on the aggregation process, one must also consider what balance between volume of eviden. (shrink)

The theory of belief revision and merging has recently been applied to judgement aggregation. In this paper I argue that judgements are best aggregated by merging the evidence on which they are based, rather than by directly merging the judgements themselves. This leads to a threestep strategy for judgement aggregation. First, merge the evidence bases of the various agents using some method of belief merging. Second, determine which degrees of belief one should adopt on the basis (...) of this merged evidence base, by applying objective Bayesian theory. Third, determine which judgements are appropriate given these degrees of belief by applying a decision-theoretic account of rational judgement formation. (shrink)

The theory of belief revision and merging has recently been applied to judgement aggregation. In this paper I argue that judgements are best aggregated by merging the evidence on which they are based, rather than by directly merging the judgements themselves. This leads to a three-step strategy for judgement aggregation. First, merge the evidence bases of the various agents using some method of belief merging. Second, determine which degrees of belief one should adopt on the basis (...) of this merged evidence base, by applying objective Bayesian theory. Third, determine which judgements are appropriate given these degrees of belief by applying a decision-theoretic account of rational judgement formation. (shrink)

When members of a group doxastically disagree with each other, decisions in the group are often hard to make. The members are supposed to find an epistemic compromise. How do members of a group reach a rational epistemic compromise on a proposition when they have different (rational) credences in the proposition? I answer the question by suggesting the Fine-Grained Method of Aggregation, which is introduced in Brössel and Eder 2014 and is further developed here. I show how this method (...) faces challenges of the standard method of aggregation, Weighted Straight Averaging, in a successful way. One of the challenges concerns the fact that Weighted Straight Averaging does not respect the evidential states of agents. Another challenge arises because Weighted Straight Averaging does not account for synergetic effects. (shrink)

Investors who are more willing to accept risks when evaluating their investments less frequently are said to exhibit myopic loss aversion (MLA). Several recent experimental studies found that, on average, subjects bet significantly higher amounts on a risky lottery when they observe only a cumulative outcome of several realizations of the lottery (long evaluation period). In this article, we reexamine these empirical findings by analyzing individual rather than aggregate choice patterns. The behavior of the majority of subjects is inconsistent with (...) the hypothesis of MLA: they bet an intermediate fraction of their initial endowment and these bets, on average, are not significantly different across two treatments with short and long evaluation period. We discuss several alternative explanations of this finding, including the Fechner model of random errors and the financial asset pricing model. (shrink)

To aggregate rankings into a social ranking, a natural approach is to use scoring systems such as Plurality, Veto, and Borda that assign scores to candidates. We distinguish three types of methods built on scoring systems: ranking by score, ranking by repeatedly choosing a winner, and ranking by repeatedly choosing a loser. The latter method captures the frequently studied voting rules Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), Coombs, and Baldwin. We compare these classes of methods axiomatically, referencing prior results. In an experimental (...) analysis, we show that the three types of methods produce different rankings in practice. We also provide evidence that sequentially selecting winners is most suitable to detect a ground truth ranking of candidates. For different rules in our classes, we then study the (parameterized) computational complexity of deciding in which positions a given candidate can appear in the chosen ranking. As part of our analysis, we also consider the Winner Determination problem for IRV, Coombs, and Baldwin and determine their complexity when there are few voters or candidates. (shrink)

How do opinion diversity and belief polarisation affect epistemic group decision-making, particularly if decisions must be made without delay and on the basis of permissive evidence? In an agent-based model, we track the consistency of group opinions aggregated through sentence-wise majority voting. Simulations on the model reveal that high opinion diversity, but not polarisation, incurs a significant inconsistency risk. These results indicate that epistemic group decisions based on permissive evidence can be particularly difficult for diverse groups. The results (...) also improve our understanding of what can reasonably be expected of expert groups, and where expert advice might have limits. (shrink)

Philosophical debates over statistical evidence have long been framed and dominated by L. Jonathan Cohen's Paradox of the Gatecrasher and a related hypothetical example commonly called Prison Yard. These examples, however, raise an issue not discussed in the large and growing literature on statistical evidence – the question of what statistical evidence is supposed to be evidence of. In actual practice, the legal system does not start with a defendant and then attempt to determine if that (...) defendant has committed some unspecified or under-specified act, as these examples appear to suppose. Rather, both criminal and civil litigation start with a sufficiently specified act and then attempt to determine if the defendant has committed it. And when we start with a more fully specified act, the statistics look very different, and these prominent examples no longer present the paradox they are claimed to support. Examining the issue of specification, however, does more than simply undercut the prominent examples in a long and extensive literature. The examination also raises normative issues challenging the legal system's traditional reluctance to base liability on the conjunction of probabilities. (shrink)

Background The increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it also represents a loss of confidence in the typical normative and analytic methods of bioethics. Discussion The recent incipiency of "Evidence-Based Ethics" attests to this phenomenon and should be rejected as a solution to the (...) current ambivalence toward the normative resolution of moral problems in a pluralistic society. While "evidence-based" is typically read in medicine and other life and social sciences as the empirically-adequate standard of reasonable practice and a means for increasing certainty, I propose that the evidence-based movement in fact gains consensus by displacing normative discourse with aggregate or statistically-derived empirical evidence as the "bottom line". Therefore, along with wavering on the fact/value distinction, evidence-based ethics threatens bioethics' normative mandate. The appeal of the evidence-based approach is that it offers a means of negotiating the demands of moral pluralism. Rather than appealing to explicit values that are likely not shared by all, "the evidence" is proposed to adjudicate between competing claims. Quantified measures are notably more "neutral" and democratic than liberal markers like "species normal functioning". Yet the positivist notion that claims stand or fall in light of the evidence is untenable; furthermore, the legacy of positivism entails the quieting of empirically non-verifiable considerations like moral claims and judgments. As a result, evidence-based ethics proposes to operate with the implicit normativity that accompanies the production and presentation of all biomedical and scientific facts unchecked. Summary The "empirical turn" in bioethics signals a need for reconsideration of the methods used for moral evaluation and resolution, however the options should not include obscuring normative content by seemingly neutral technical measure. (shrink)

Neurodegenerative syndromes present as proteinopathies – does ribosomal infidelity contribute to the protein toxicity that is the driving force for neuronal cell loss? Intracellular and extracellular protein aggregates overwhelm the clearance capacity of cells and tissues. Proteins aggregate when hydrophobic residues are exposed. Hydrophobic residues become exposed when proteins are misfolded. Protein misfolding can originate from translational errors at the ribosome. Indeed, the most error‐prone process in gene expression is translation at the ribosome. Recent evidence indicates that manipulating the (...) ribosomal accuracy impacts on the lifespan of model organisms and a reduced translational accuracy is accompanied by neurodegeneration. The first hit in aging‐associated neurodegenerative disease may be the well‐documented decline of cellular buffering capacity by aging. A second hit that impacts on the quality of protein synthesis could be the driving force for the observed loss of proteostasis in neurodegeneration. This hypothesis provides an explanation for the late onset of most neurodegenerative diseases. (shrink)

Paraconsistent logic is an area of philosophical logic that has yet to find acceptance from a wider audience. The area remains, in a word, disreputable. In this essay, we try to reassure potential consumers that it is not necessary to become a radical in order to use paraconsistent logic. According to the radicals, the problem is the absurd classical account of contradiction: Classically inconsistent sets explode only because bourgeois classical semantics holds, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the (...) contrary, that both A and ∼ A cannot simultaneously be true! We suggest (more modestly) that there is, at least sometimes, something else worth preserving, even in an inconsistent, unsatisfiable premise set. In this paper we present, in a new guise, a very general version of this “preservationist” approach to paraconsistency. (shrink)

Sometimes we ought to aggregate lesser harms to many such that they outweigh greater harms to a few, and sometimes we ought not to. This seems self-evident, but it has proven surprisingly difficult to construct a coherent moral theory out of this basic observation. In particular, it is difficult to explain (in a principled way) when we ought to aggregate. Relevance views attempt to solve this problem by arguing that sufficiently lesser harms are irrelevant to greater harms and thus should (...) not be taken into consideration. My thesis develops and defends a new relevance view. The first half of the thesis focuses on when lesser harms can aggregate and outweigh stronger harms. I start by solving a ‘fatal’ dilemma for all relevance views. I show that one horn of the dilemma is fatal but avoidable, whilst the other is unavoidable but not fatal, and that the dilemma rests on a faulty assumption of weak-additivity. I then develop a new relevance view based around the principle that we ought to balance harms by similarity (i.e., we ought to balance greater harms against similarly great harms and lesser harms against other lesser harms) before deciding whether lesser harms are relevant to greater harms. The second half focuses on when lesser harms can aggregate and tiebreak between stronger harms. First, I show that relevance views cannot capture our intuition that sufficiently lesser harms should not tiebreak between greater harms, without forfeiting our intuitions in other important cases. Secondly, I demonstrate that relevance views are sometimes inappropriately insensitive to the number of harms in tiebreaking cases. To solve these problems, I distinguish between two types of relevance, and I introduce Broomean fairness into my account. Doing so allows my view to capture all our intuitions about when lesser harms can tiebreak between stronger harms. (shrink)

Sometimes we ought to aggregate lesser harms to many such that they outweigh greater harms to a few, and sometimes we ought not to. This seems self-evident, but it has proven surprisingly difficult to construct a coherent moral theory out of this basic observation. In particular, it is difficult to explain (in a principled way) when we ought to aggregate. Relevance views attempt to solve this problem by arguing that sufficiently lesser harms are irrelevant to greater harms and thus should (...) not be taken into consideration. My thesis develops and defends a new relevance view. The first half of the thesis focuses on when lesser harms can aggregate and outweigh stronger harms. I start by solving a ‘fatal’ dilemma for all relevance views. I show that one horn of the dilemma is fatal but avoidable, whilst the other is unavoidable but not fatal, and that the dilemma rests on a faulty assumption of weak-additivity. I then develop a new relevance view based around the principle that we ought to balance harms by similarity (i.e., we ought to balance greater harms against similarly great harms and lesser harms against other lesser harms) before deciding whether lesser harms are relevant to greater harms. The second half focuses on when lesser harms can aggregate and tiebreak between stronger harms. First, I show that relevance views cannot capture our intuition that sufficiently lesser harms should not tiebreak between greater harms, without forfeiting our intuitions in other important cases. Secondly, I demonstrate that relevance views are sometimes inappropriately insensitive to the number of harms in tiebreaking cases. To solve these problems, I distinguish between two types of relevance, and I introduce Broomean fairness into my account. Doing so allows my view to capture all our intuitions about when lesser harms can tiebreak between stronger harms. (shrink)

Information is a peculiar quantity. Unlike matter and energy, which are conserved by the laws of physics, the aggregation of knowledge from many sources can in fact produce more information (synergy) or less (redundancy) than the sum of its parts. This feature can endow groups with problem‐solving strategies that are superior to those possible among noninteracting individuals and, in turn, may provide a selection drive toward collective cooperation and coordination. Here we explore the formal properties of information aggregation (...) as a general principle for explaining features of social organization. We quantify information in terms of the general formalism of information theory, which also prescribes the rules of how different pieces of evidence inform the solution of a given problem. We then show how several canonical examples of collective cognition and coordination can be understood through principles of minimization of uncertainty (maximization of predictability) under information pooling over many individuals. We discuss in some detail how collective coordination in swarms, markets, natural language processing, and collaborative filtering may be guided by the optimal aggregation of information in social collectives. We also identify circumstances when these processes fail, leading, for example, to inefficient markets. The contrast to approaches to understand coordination and collaboration via decision and game theory is also briefly discussed. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the problem of ranking available drugs in guideline development to support clinicians in their work. Based on a pragmatic approach to the notion of evidence and a hierarchical view on different kinds of evidence this chapter introduces a decision aid, HiDAD, which draws on the multi criteria decision making literature. This decision aid implements the wide-spread intuition that there are different kinds of evidence with varying degrees of importance by relying on a strict ordinal (...) ordering of kinds of evidence. In order to construct a ranking every pair of drugs is first compared separately on all kinds of evidence. Next, these quantitative comparisons are then aggregated into an overall comparison between drugs based on all the available evidence in a way which avoids that evidence of less importance is trumped by evidence of the higher levels. Finally, these overall comparisons are used to determine the final ranking of drugs which then informs the process of guideline writing. Properties, modifications and applicability of the decision aid HiDAD are discussed and assessed. (shrink)

In response to those who see rational deliberation as a source of epistemic norms and a model for well-functioning scientific inquiry, Solomon cites evidence that aggregative techniques often yield better results; deliberative processes are vulnerable to biasing mechanisms that impoverish the epistemic resources on which group judgments are based. I argue that aggregative techniques are similarly vulnerable and illustrate this in terms of the impact of gender schemas on both individual and collective judgment. A consistently externalist and socially naturalized (...) approach calls for symmetrical treatment of these strategies for capitalizing on what groups know. (shrink)

TDP‐43 is a ubiquitously expressed RNA‐binding protein that aggregates in the brains of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease. Aggregated TDP‐43 in these diseases is hyperphosphorylated in its C‐terminal intrinsically disordered region, while physiological TDP‐43 is normally unphosphorylated. Whether TDP‐43 phosphorylation is a pathological driver, or rather a protective antagonist of TDP‐43 aggregation and consequently neurodegeneration, is still debated and a matter of ongoing research. Here, we review current (...) knowledge about TDP‐43 phosphorylation in disease and the kinases and phosphatases that regulate this post‐translational modification. We discuss how TDP‐43 phosphorylation is thought to shape TDP‐43's phase separation, aggregation and toxicity in neurodegenerative diseases. We highlight recent research that provides evidence that hyperphosphorylation antagonizes TDP‐43 phase separation and aggregation, and speculate about a potential role of condensates in TDP‐43 phosphorylation. (shrink)

Aggregation in moral philosophy calls for the summing or averaging of values or utilities as a guide to individual behavior. But morality, it is argued, needs to be individualistic, in view of the evident separateness of persons, especially given the great disparities among individuals who nevertheless interact with each other in social life. The most plausible general moral program is the classical liberal (or “libertarian”) one calling for mutual noninterference rather than treating others as equal to oneself in point (...) of demands on our action. Why, then, would we ever aggregate? The reason is that we are affected by behavior that has general effects, especially unintended side effects, on all sorts of people among whom we ourselves are often to be found. When we are randomly situated among such groups—as we sometimes are and often are not—minimizing aggregate harm is the plausible strategy, and sometimes promoting aggregate benefit as well. (shrink)

Chapter 4 argued that we should reject Sidgwick's conception of individual self-interest because it assumes a simple additive-aggregationist approach for assessing the overall value of a life. Specifically, it was argued that in some cases anti-additive aggregationist principles are applicable within lives, as well as between lives, including analogues of Chapter 2's Second Standard View and Chapter 3's Disperse Additional Burdens View. However, as should be evident, like the anti-additive aggregationist principles of Chapters 2 and 3, Chapter 4's analogues of (...) those principles are incomplete. They are only applicable to, and generate rankings for, certain cases. In other cases, they are silent, and we must rely on other principles to rank alternative lives. However, often the principles that are appropriate for ranking alternative lives generate judgments that are incompatible with the judgments generated by the anti-additive-aggregationist principles, if “all-things-considered better than” (in this book's wide reason-implying sense) is a transitive relation. This chapter shows that, as with rankings involving different lives, the relevance of different principles for ranking individual lives raises deep problems about aggregation and trade-offs within lives. (shrink)

The call for evidence-based practice in education emphasizes the need for research to provide evidence for particular fields of educational practice. With this systematic literature review we summarize and analyze aggregated effectiveness information from 41 meta-analyses published between 2004 and 2019 to inform evidence-based practice in a particular field. In line with target specifications in education that are provided for a certain school subject and educational level, we developed and adopted a selection heuristic for filtering aggregated effect (...) sizes specific to both science and mathematics education and the secondary student population. The results include 78 context-specific aggregated effect sizes based on data from over one million students. The findings encompass a multitude of different teaching strategies, most of which offer a measurable advantage to alternatives. Findings demonstrate that context-specific effect size information may often differ from more general effect size information on teaching effectiveness and adherence to quality standards varies in sampled meta-analyses. Thus, although meta-analytic research has strongly developed over the last few years, providing context-specific and high-quality evidence still needs to be a focus in the field of secondary mathematics and science teaching and beyond. (shrink)

In this paper reasons are given for accepting a paradigmatically 'metaphysical' thesis called Unrestricted Mereological Composition, or something close to it. These reasons are drawn from thoroughly empirical considerations that played a significant role in the history of physical sciences, particularly in the emergence of the Newtonian laws of motion. Roughly: this metaphysical thesis is supported by a principle of 'inference to the best explanation' of observations of the very same kind that paradigmatically furnish evidence supporting or undermining empirical (...) theories in physics. There are methodological morals in metaphilosophy to be drawn from this historical example - blurring the distinction that has been traditionally drawn between 'metaphysical' theses and 'empirical' hypotheses. (shrink)

How should the opinion of a group be related to the opinions of the group members? In this article, we will defend a package of four norms – coherence, locality, anonymity and unanimity. Existing results show that there is no tenable procedure for aggregating outright beliefs or for aggregating credences that meet these criteria. In response, we consider the prospects for aggregating credal pairs – pairs of prior probabilities and evidence. We show that there is a method of aggregating (...) credal pairs that possesses all four virtues. (shrink)

Although the academic interest in ethical mutual fund performance has developed steadily, the evidence to date is mainly sample-specific. To tackle this critique, new research should extend to unexplored countries. Using this as a motivation, we examine the performance and risk sensitivities of Canadian ethical mutual funds vis-à-vis their conventional peers. In order to overcome the methodological deficiencies most prior papers suffered from, we use performance measurement approaches in the spirit of Carhart (1997, Journal of Finance 52(1): 57–82) and (...) Ferson and Schadt (1996, Journal of Finance 51(2): 425–461). In doing so, we investigate the aggregated performance and investment style of ethical and conventional mutual funds and allow for time variation in the funds’ systematic risk. Our␣Canadian evidence supports the conjecture that any␣performance differential between ethical mutual funds and their conventional peers is statistically insignificant. (shrink)

This article examines two theses formulated by Russo and Williamson in their study of causal inference in the health sciences. The two theses are assessed against evidence from a specific case in the social sciences, i.e., research on the institutional determinants of the aggregate unemployment rate. The first Russo–Williamson Thesis is that a causal claim can only be established when it is jointly supported by difference-making and mechanistic evidence. This thesis is shown not to hold. While researchers in (...) my case study draw extensively on both types of evidence, one causal claim out of the three analyzed is established even though it is exclusively supported by mechanistic evidence. The second Russo–Williamson Thesis is that standard accounts of causality fail to handle the dualist epistemology highlighted in the first Thesis. I argue that a counterfactual-manipulationist account of causality—which is endorsed by many philosophers as well as many social scientists—can perfectly make sense of the typical strategy in my case study to draw on both difference-making and mechanistic evidence; it is just an instance of the common strategy of increasing evidential variety. (shrink)

There is growing regulatory pressure on firms worldwide to address the under-representation of women in senior positions. Regulators have taken a variety of approaches to the issue. We investigate a jurisdiction that has issued recommendations and disclosure requirements, rather than implementing quotas. Much of the rhetoric surrounding gender diversity centres on whether diversity has a financial impact. In this paper we take an aggregate (market-level) approach and compare the performance of portfolios of firms with gender diverse boards to those without. (...) We also investigate whether having multiple women on the board is linked to performance, and if there is a within-industry effect. Overall, we do not find evidence of an association between diversity and performance. We find some weak evidence of a negative correlation between having multiple women on the board and performance, but that in some industries diversity is positively correlated with performance. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the methods that macroeconomists can use to provide evidence in support of causal hypotheses: the instrumental variable method and econometric causality tests. It argues that the evidence that macroeconomists provide when using these methods is in principle too inconclusive to support the hypothesis that X directly type-level causes Y, where X and Y stand for macroeconomic aggregates like the real interest rate and aggregate demand. The evidence provided by the IV method is too inconclusive (...) because it derives from conditions requiring that there be no confounders of I and X and X and Y, and because in macroeconomics, confounders that cannot be controlled for or measured are likely to be present. The evidence provided by econometric causality tests is too inconclusive because they can be shown to rely on the conditions of the IV method at least tacitly. (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that amalgamating confirmation from various sources is relevantly different from social-choice contexts, and that proving an impossibility theorem for aggregating confirmation measures directs attention to irrelevant issues.

We report on an experiment examining whether individuals can solve a simple signal extraction problem of the type found in models with imperfect information. In one treatment, subjects must form point predictions based on observing both public and private signals, while in another they receive the same information but must decide on the weight to attach to each signal, which then determines their point prediction. We find that, at the aggregate level, signal extraction provides a good characterization of subjects’ behavior (...) in both treatments, but at the individual level, there is considerable heterogeneity in subjects’ ability to perform signal extraction. (shrink)

Existing research shows consistently high levels of concern among people in the UK over the scale of immigration and its impact on jobs, wages and services. At the same time, that same body of research does not provide much in the way of detail about the nature of these concerns. This is partly because much of the data is from opinion polls which say little about the priorities and perspectives that underlie the aggregate numbers. Moreover, very little research has been (...) carried out on what new immigration policies the British public would like to see once the UK leaves the EU and free movement ends. Our research for this report aims to fill these gaps by providing evidence about how people use and understand information about economic impacts of immigration, and what they might wish to see from new, post-Brexit, policies. (shrink)

The theory stating that oxidative stress is at the root of several diseases is extremely popular. However, so far, no antioxidant is recommended or offered by healthcare systems neither approved as therapy by regulatory agencies that base their decisions on evidence-based medicine. This is simply because, so far, despite many preclinical and clinical studies indicating a beneficial effect of antioxidants in many disease conditions, randomised clinical trials have failed to provide the evidence of efficacy required for drug approval. (...) In this review, we discuss the levels of evidence required to claim causality in preclinical research on OS, the weakness of the oversimplification associated with OS theory of disease and the importance of the narrative in its popularity. Finally, from a more translational perspective, we discuss the reasons why antioxidants acting by scavenging reactive oxygen species might not only prevent their detrimental effects but also interfere with essential signalling roles. We propose that ROS have a complex metabolism and are generated by different enzymes at diverse sites and with different timing. Aggregating this plurality of systems in a single theory of disease may not be the best way to develop new drugs, and future research may need to focus on specific oxygen-toxifying pathways rather than on non-specific ROS scavengers. Finally, similarly to what is nowadays required for clinical trials, we recommend making unpublished data available in repositories, as this will allow big data approaches or meta-analyses without the blinders of the publication bias. (shrink)

Most studies on the choices, motivations and behavior of investors consist of segmentations focused on socio-demographic characteristics such as age, income, education level, etc. Such approaches seem to simplify, even mutilate, reality by aggregating data about observable variables and considering investors as homogeneous groups. These perspectives are inspired by a scientific approach that consists of separating in order to better understand the observed phenomena. By considering individual as a “homo economicus”, that is to say, a rational and autonomous individual who (...) makes decisions motivated by material gains, these studies fail to recognize all the complexity that shapes human behavior. This paper argues that to understand the behavior and choices of investors in regards to socially responsible investing (SRI), we must consider social investors as complex individuals. In addition, we should take into account influence that the institution may exercise throughout the role of advisors and SRI promotion strategies. Our research builds on a multidimensional approach that explores to what extent demographic, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, the trade-offs between financial return and social values, the attitudes and the role of the institution (throughout the role of the advisor and SRI promotion strategies) influence the decisions of individual social investors. Moreover, it adopts a more open approach by exploring the characteristics and behaviors of individual social investors in relation to those of conventional investors. Our research provides evidence from the Desjardins Fund. Qualitative and quantitative data gathered by Desjardins from online surveys are subjected to bivariate and multivariate analyses and are complimented by ten semi-structured interviews with managers, analysts, and advisors who provided further insight into SRI investment behavior and choice. The results show that while demographic characteristics still remain important in understanding the behavior and attitudes of social investors, it is their social values, ESG issues, financial return considerations and the role played by the institution in mediating investment decisions that are significantly associated with SRI portfolios. Our research highlights the complexity surrounding the phenomenon of SRI and has several implications both in terms of theory and practice. (shrink)

This study investigates the volatility risk premium on the emerging financial market. We also consider the expected return and ESG sentiment. Based on the SSE 50 ETF 5-minute high-frequency spots and daily options data from 2016 to 2021, we adopt nonparametric model-free approaches to calculate realized and implied volatilities. And the volatility risk premium is constructed by subtracting these volatility series. We examine the relations between the volatility risk premium and future excess returns as well as ESG sentiment through multifactor (...) specifications. We find that the volatility risk premium also exists in the Chinese market and is significantly negative. In addition, the statistically positive correlation between the volatility risk premium and aggregate returns is an outlier compared to the empirically negative pattern in developed markets. At last, ESG sentiment is positively associated with the volatility risk premium, especially the impact of environmental and social. This evidence supports the agency theory, which indicates that investors perceive ESG investments as waste resources in a short term and become potentially risky. (shrink)

In this thesis, I present neighbourhood semantics as a framework for modelling evidence-based belief, as first presented in Van Benthem and Pacuit (2011). I argue why this is a well-suited framework for modelling this particular doxastic attitude, by postulating a number of desiderata that a good formal representation of evidence and evidence-based belief should satisfy, and by showing that neighbourhood semantics outperforms its competitors on almost all of these desiderata. I, further- more, explain and accommodate its shortcomings (...) (i.e. the desideratum it does not fully satisfy) by making a qualification on the framework - I incorporate degrees of trustworthiness of the evidence a belief is based on into the models, to render the belief a justified belief, since for a belief to be justified, it being based on evidence is not sufficient, the evidence needs to, in addition, be trustworthy, i.e. come from a reliable source. After presenting the adapted semantics, I develop an epistemic hierarchy of different types of beliefs, and, I, furthermore, explain how the notion of trustworthiness of evidence I introduce differs from Van Benthem and Pacuit (2011)’s idea of reliable evidence. Lastly, I present and expand on Van Benthem and Pacuit (2011)’s suggestion for group notions of evidence and belief. I present their original notions of group evi- dence and formulate corresponding notions of group belief. In addition, I formulate clauses of group evidence and belief incorporating the notion of trustworthiness, and finally, present group notions of evidence and belief corresponding to the most prominent aggregation rules from the judgment aggregation literature. (shrink)

This paper sheds new light on Putnam's hypothesis that watching television, particularly entertainment programs, contributes to an erosion of social trust. Previous studies have been unable to reach convincing evidence regarding this claim. It is argued that this is a consequence of the neglect of indirect, interpersonally mediated TV effects which supplement the influence of direct exposure, and extend even to those who do not watch television. Using data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of the European Social Survey (...) (ESS) in combination with aggregate data from telemetric audience research, we conduct a multilevel analysis of TV's impact on social trust. Investigating this macro-micro relationship, we find that patterns of general TV use in 25 European societies exert substantial effects on individual social trust that by far exceed those of individual TV use. In line with Putnam's hypothesis, there is a negative impact of total TV time; however, high market shares of public TV increase social trust. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is an integral component of good medical practice. Many researchers have investigated measures to improve the quality of informed consent, but it is not clear which techniques work best and why. To address this problem, we propose developing a core outcome set to evaluate interventions designed to improve the consent process for surgery in adult patients with capacity. Part of this process involves reviewing existing research that has reported what is important to patients and doctors in the (...) informed consent process. Methods This qualitative synthesis comprises four phases: identification of published papers and determining their relevance; appraisal of the quality of the papers; identification and summary of the key findings from each paper while determining the definitiveness of each finding against the primary data; comparison of key themes between papers such that findings are linked across studies. Results Searches of bibliographic databases returned 11,073 titles. Of these, 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were published between 1996 and 2016 and included a total of 367 patients and 74 health care providers. Thirteen studies collected data using in-depth interviews and constant comparison was the most common means of qualitative analysis. A total of 94 findings were extracted from the primary papers and divided into 17 categories and ultimately 6 synthesised findings related to: patient characteristics, knowledge, communication, the model patient, trust and decision making. Conclusions This qualitative meta-aggregation is the first to examine the issue of informed consent for surgery. It has revealed several outcomes deemed important to capture by patients and clinicians when evaluating the quality of a consent process. Some of these outcomes have not been examined previously in research comparing methods for informed consent. This review is an important step in the development of a COS to evaluate interventions designed to improve the consent process for surgery. Registration The study protocol was registered on the international prospective register for systematic reviews. (shrink)

Research on health inequality has traditionally focused on metrics such as years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years. This paper argues that current metrics systematically undervalue health conditions causing extreme pain to patients. Cluster headache, possibly the most painful condition known to medicine, offers a striking example of vast misallocation of economic resources relative to the burden caused, particularly relative to resources spent on similarly prevalent conditions such as multiple sclerosis. This inequality is further exacerbated when considering the possibility (...) that the most extreme human experiences may be orders of magnitude more intense than mild ones, significantly increasing the urgency of addressing conditions involving extreme pain in any economy focused on wellbeing. To better grasp the scale of the suffering caused by cluster headache, statistical data from the medical literature was aggregated into a publicly available suite of numerical simulations that estimate the global burden of cluster headache pain. Results indicate that adults with cluster headache spend 3.1 million person-days per year globally, experiencing extreme pain (rated as ≥9/10). The burden of cluster headache pain is compared to that of multiple sclerosis. An analysis of the research investment that has gone into both conditions in recent decades in the UK also reveals substantial discrepancies. Global under-funding of cluster headache may be even larger than in the UK data analysed in detail. Optimistically, it is estimated that a modest investment to provide universal access to existing treatments and to explore promising treatments could significantly reduce the burden of extreme pain caused by this devastating condition, presenting a remarkably cost-effective intervention for any well-being economy. Modest and ambitious improvements in healthcare metrics are suggested to aid the correction of such dramatic wellbeing inequalities in other conditions. (shrink)

Surplus food recovery and redistribution (FR&R) have gained prominence as a strategy to improve food access and reduce food waste. Urban areas offer favourable conditions for implementing collaborative FR&R practices due to the spatial proximity of surplus food donors, food-insecure people, nonprofit organizations, public authorities, and other relevant actors. Among these, small retailers – i.e. neighbourhood shops and vendors operating within indoor food markets – may possess unique resources that could contribute to cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) aimed at surplus food valorisation (...) and social inclusion. However, unlike large retailers, they remain largely underrepresented in FR&R networks and in international scientific literature. To address this gap, this study adopts a Resource-Based View to investigate seven CSPs across the cities of Genoa, Milan, Rome, and Turin, in Italy. Findings reveal that small retailers may provide as distinctive and valuable resources for urban FR&R fresh and nutritious surplus food and trust-based, territorially embedded relations with local communities and nonprofit organisations. However, they struggle with variable surplus food quantities, the lack of appropriate equipment to handle perishable products, limited time and knowledge to properly handle donation tasks and low economic incentives. The study reveals that CSPs may mitigate these barriers by pooling, combining and deploying a unique set of partners’ tangible and intangible resources that complement those mobilized by small retailers. In this context indoor food markets emerge as strategic public assets that aggregate vendors supplying fresh nutritious surplus food, non-profit organizations and food poor citizens and attract resources from various stakeholders in the same place, enabling the diversification and enhancement of urban FR&R. (shrink)

According to the cross-situational learning account, infants aggregate statistical information from multiple parent naming events to resolve ambiguous word-referent mappings within individual naming events. While previous experimental studies have shown that infant and adult learners can build correct mappings based on statistical regularities encoded in multiple learning situations in an experiment, other studies that use more naturalistic stimuli (e.g., real-world video) reveal poor performance in adults' ability to infer the correct referent. Based on those results derived from more naturalistic stimuli, (...) the cross-situational learning solution cannot be useful to solve the mapping problem in the real world because cross-situational statistics from the real world are much more ambiguous than those created in experimental studies. To examine the feasibility of cross-situational learning in everyday contexts, the present study aims to quantify visual-audio statistics from one of everyday activities—parent–child toy play. We analyze parent naming events in a video corpus of infant-perspective scenes during parent–child toy play in a naturalistic lab setting, where we found three distinct properties that characterize statistical regularities perceived by young learners: (1) there are a limited number of visual scene compositions perceived by young learners at the moments when they hear object names; (2) the frequencies of parent naming events are distributed in a skewed, Zipfian fashion; and (3) cross-situational statistics in naturalistic toy play are comparable to those used in laboratory experiments. Our results underscore the importance of quantifying the statistical regularities in the input from the learner's perspective in order to shed light on the mechanisms supporting early word learning. (shrink)

We examine the interplay between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and related party transactions (RPTs). As per our findings, aggregate RPTs is associated with higher CSR expenditure. The level of business RPTs positively correlates with CSR spending, whereas a negative association is witnessed in the case of tone RPTs. Further analysis reveals a greater propensity among firms with significant RPTs to expropriate resources through manipulative earnings management practices that could lower CSR spending. We also document that high ownership concentration reduces CSR (...) expenditure. While the results are robust to alternate variable and model specifications, concerns surrounding endogeneity and sample selection bias have been addressed through the use of two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations and the Heckman two-step selection models, respectively. The study extends the extant literature on the relationship between CSR and RPTs, with the potential moderating roles of earnings management and ownership concentration. From regulatory standpoint, the focus should be on the implementation of robust monitoring mechanism to curb misuse of RPTs as a tool for expropriating firms’ resources. Indian firms, on their part, should strengthen their internal corporate governance mechanisms to improve transparency in RPTs oversight, ensuring alignment with sustainability goals. (shrink)

In highly structured organisational fields individual efforts to deal rationally with uncertainty and constraints tend to lead, in the aggregate, to greater homogeneity in structure, culture and output. Drawing on institutional theory, this paper develops research propositions regarding the nature and scope of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement at trade/industry association level. The cases of the water and sewerage and film industries are used in order to test these propositions. The findings suggest that (a) trade associations in more homogeneous industries (...) are more likely to engage with CSR‐related issues; (b) trade associations in industries that face greater external scrutiny and threats to legitimacy are more likely to engage with CSR‐related issues; and (c) trade associations are more likely to engage with those substantive CSR issues that are of greater concern to the industry's most salient stakeholders. The findings also suggest that trade associations may have a greater tendency to engage in symbolic legitimation efforts through CSR if faced with the task of repairing industry legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of socially responsible (SR) funds in Sweden by assessing fund managers' abilities and performances across different market states. These issues are analyzed at the aggregate and individual fund levels. The paper also presents several new statistical tests that allow more precise inferences about differences in performance and the variability in fund returns arising from different benchmarks. In general, SR and conventional funds perform similarly to the market. At the aggregate level, SR funds investing in (...) Sweden and Europe perform similarly to conventional funds, while those investing globally tend to underperform. This underperformance seems to be linked with poor selectivity abilities of global SR fund managers. For individual funds, the performance of both types of funds is more similar. Most funds perform similarly in crisis periods compared to non‐crisis periods. Overall, our results are consistent with a mature market for SR investing and support the view that the similar performance of SR and conventional funds is associated with the mainstreaming of SR investment in Sweden. These findings encourage SR investing both by socially conscious investors, who wish to align their social values with their investment decisions, as well as by conventional investors, who will not be penalized by investing in these funds. We also call attention to the difficulties investors face when trying to identify funds with high social standards, considering that there is scarce information on the extent to which each fund (SR or conventional) holds stocks that comply with ethical and social criteria. (shrink)

Fred Greenstein, an acknowledged authority in this field, lays out conceptual and methodological standards for carrying out personality-and politics inquiries, ranging from psychological case studies of single actors, through multi-case analyses of types of political actors, to aggregative analyses of the impact of individuals and types of individuals on political systems and processes. Originally published in 1987. 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 editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover 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)

We study the effect of transaction costs (e.g., a trading fee or a transaction tax, like the Tobin tax) on the aggregation of private information in financial markets. We analyze a financial market à la Glosten and Milgrom, in which informed and uninformed traders trade in sequence with a market maker. Traders have to pay a cost in order to trade. We show that, eventually, all informed traders decide not to trade, independently of their private information, i.e., an informational (...) cascade occurs. We replicated our financial market in the laboratory. We found that, in the experiment, informational cascades occur when the theory suggests they should. Nevertheless, the ability of the price to aggregate private information is not significantly affected. (JEL C92, D8, G14). (shrink)

Modern societies are characterized by a division of epistemic labor between laypeople and epistemic authorities. Authorities are often far more competent than laypeople and can thus, ideally, inform their beliefs. But how should laypeople rationally respond to an authority’s beliefs if they already have beliefs and reasons of their own concerning some subject matter? According to the standard view, the beliefs of epistemic authorities are just further, albeit weighty, pieces of evidence. In contrast, the Preemption View claims that, when (...) one discovers what an authority believes, it is not permissible to rely on any of one’s own reasons concerning the subject matter. The original version of this view, as proposed by Linda Zagzebski, has recently been severely criticized for recommending blind trust and for abandoning even minimal standards for critical thinking. In our paper, we defend a new version of the Preemption View—Defeatist Preemptionism—in a way that differs radically from Zagzebski’s. We argue that our view can be derived from certain widely accepted general epistemic principles. In particular, we claim that preemption can be identified as a special case of source sensitive defeat. Moreover, we argue that Defeatist Preemptionism does not lead to the undesirable consequences that critics ascribe to the Preemption View. The paper thus articulates the foundations and refinements of the Preemption View, such that it adequately captures the phenomenon of epistemic authority and the rational requirements related to it. (shrink)