| 1. |
- Banerjee, Sanchayan, et al.
(författare)
-
It's time we put agency into Behavioural Public Policy
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Behavioural Public Policy. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 2398-063X .- 2398-0648. ; , s. 1-18
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Promoting agency – people's ability to form intentions and to act on them freely – must become a primary objective for Behavioural Public Policy (BPP). Contemporary BPPs do not directly pursue this objective, which is problematic for many reasons. From an ethical perspective, goals like personal autonomy and individual freedom cannot be realised without nurturing citizens’ agency. From an efficacy standpoint, BPPs that override agency – for example, by activating automatic psychological processes – leave citizens ‘in the dark’, incapable of internalising and owning the process of behaviour change. This may contribute to non-persistent treatment effects, compensatory negative spillovers or psychological reactance and backfiring effects. In this paper, we argue agency-enhancing BPPs can alleviate these ethical and efficacy limitations to longer-lasting and meaningful behaviour change. We set out philosophical arguments to help us understand and conceptualise agency. Then, we review three alternative agency-enhancing behavioural frameworks: (1) boosts to enhance people's competences to make better decisions; (2) debiasing to encourage people to reduce the tendency for automatic, impulsive responses; and (3) nudge+ to enable citizens to think alongside nudges and evaluate them transparently. Using a multi-dimensional framework, we highlight differences in their workings, which offer comparative insights and complementarities in their use. We discuss limitations of agency-enhancing BPPs and map out future research directions.
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Bülow, William, 1986-
(författare)
-
Ethics of Imprisonment : Essays in Criminal Justice Ethics
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This licentiate thesis consists of three essays which all concern the ethics of imprisonment and what constitutes an ethically defensible treatment of criminal offenders.Paper 1 defends the claim that prisoners have a right to privacy. I argue that the right to privacy is important because of its connection to moral agency. For that reasons is the protection of inmates’ right to privacy also warranted by different established philosophical theories about the justification of legal punishment. I discuss the practical implications of this argument. Ultimately I argue the invasion of privacy should be minimized to the greatest extent possible without compromising other important values and rights to safety and security. In defending this position, I argue that respect for inmates’ privacy should be part of the objective of creating and upholding a secure environment to better effect in the long run.Paper 2 discusses whether the collateral harm of imprisonment to the close family members and children of prison inmates may give rise to special moral obligations towards them. Several collateral harms, including decreased psychological wellbeing, financial costs, loss of economic opportunities, and intrusion and control over their private lives, are identified. Two competing perspectives in moral philosophy are applied in order to assess whether the harms are permissible. The first is consequentialist and the second is deontological, and it is argued that both of them fails and therefore it is hard to defend the position that allowing for these harms would be morally permissible, even for the sake of the overall aims of incarceration. Instead, it is argued that these harms imply that imprisonment should only be used as a last resort. Where it is necessary, imprisonment should give rise to special moral obligations towards families of prisoners. Using the notion of residual obligation, these obligations are defended, categorized and clarified.Paper 3 evaluates electronic monitoring (EM) from an ethical perspective and discusses whether it could be a promising alternative to imprisonment as a criminal sanction for a series of criminal offenses. EM evaluated from an ethical perspective as six initial ethical challenges are addressed and discussed. It is argued that since EM is developing as a technology and a punitive means, it is urgent to discuss its ethical implications and incorporate moral values into its design and development.
|
|
| 4. |
- Bülow, William, 1986-
(författare)
-
Unfit to live among others : Essays on the ethics of imprisonment
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis provides an ethical analysis of imprisonment as a mode of punishment. Consisting in an introduction and four papers the thesis addresses several important questions concerning imprisonment from a number of different perspectives and theoretical starting points. One overall conclusion of this thesis is that imprisonment, as a mode of punishment, deserves more attention from moral and legal philosophers. It is also concluded that a more complete ethical assessment of prison conditions and prison management requires a broader focus. It must include an explicit discussion of both how imprisonment directly affects prison inmates and its negative side-effects on third parties. Another conclusion is that ethical discussions on prison conditions should not be too easily reduced to a question about how harsh or lenient is should be.Paper 1 argues that prisoners have a right to privacy. It is argued that respect for inmates’ privacy is related to respect for them as moral agents. Consequently, respect for inmates’ privacy is called for by different established philosophical theories about the justification of legal punishment. Practical implications of this argument are discussed and it is argued that invasion of privacy should be minimized to the greatest extent possible, without compromising other important values or the rights to safety and security. It is also proposed that respect for privacy should be part of the objective of creating and upholding a secure environment.Paper 2 discusses whether the collateral harm of imprisonment to the children and other close family members of prison inmates may give rise to special moral obligations towards them. Several collateral harms, including decreased psychological wellbeing, financial costs, loss of economic opportunities, and intrusion and control over their private lives, are identified. Two perspectives in moral philosophy, consequentialism and deontology, are then applied in order to assess whether these harms are permissible. It is argued that from either perspective it is hard to defend the claim that allowing for these harms are morally permissible. Consequently, imprisonment should be used only as a last resort. Where it is deemed necessary, it gives rise to special moral obligations. Using the notion of residual obligation, these obligations are then categorized and clarified. Paper 3 focuses on an argument that has figured in the philosophical debate on felon disenfranchisement. This argument states that as a matter of democratic self-determination, a legitimate democratic collective has the collective right to decide whether to disenfranchise felons as a way of defining their political identity. Yet, such a collective’s right to self-determination is limited, since the choice to disenfranchise anyone must be connected to normative considerations of political significance. This paper defends this argument against three charges that has been raised to it. In doing so it also explores under what circumstances felon disenfranchisement can be permissible.Paper 4 explores the question of whether prison inmates suffering from ADHD should be administered psychopharmacological intervention (methylphenidate) for their condition. The theoretical starting point for the discussion is the communicative theory of punishment, which understands criminal punishment as a form of secular penance. Viewed through the lens of the communicative theory it is argued that the provision of pharmacological treatment to offenders with ADHD need not necessarily be conceived of as an alternative to punishment, but as an aid to achieving the penological ends of secular penance. Thus, in this view offenders diagnosed with ADHD should have the option to undergo pharmacological treatment.
|
|
| 5. |
- Clausen Mork, Jonas
(författare)
-
Dealing with uncertainty
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Uncertainty is, it seems, more or less constantly present in our lives. Even so, grasping the concept philosophically is far from trivial. In this doctoral thesis, uncertainty and its conceptual companion information are studied. Axiomatic analyses are provided and numerical measures suggested. In addition to these basic conceptual analyses, the widespread practice of so-called safety factor use in societal regulation is analyzed along with the interplay between science and policy in European regulation of chemicals and construction.
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Erdeniz, Robert, 1981-
(författare)
-
Military Operations Planning and Methodology : Thoughts on military problem-solving
- 2017
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis discusses military operations planning and methodology by reviewing two of NATO’s planning documents, i.e. the ‘Allied Joint Doctrine for Operational-Level Planning’ (AJP 5) and the ‘Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive’ (COPD), and defends the following claim.Parts of the description of NATO’s Operational-Level Planning Process (OLPP), as described in the AJP 5 and the COPD, is methodologically inconsistent (contradictory), due to epistemic and practical implications of methodology.As such, the thesis discusses three topics: approaches to Operational Art, planning heuristics and implications of methodology. The thesis also intertwines military operations planning, methodology and military problem-solving.This thesis consists of two published papers and an introduction. The introduction explains and further discusses operations planning as well as terms and concepts stated within the two papers.Paper I focuses on the AJP 5 and discusses the methodological distinction between two approaches within Operational Art, denoted the ‘Design’ and the ‘Systemic’ approach. The distinction between these approaches is vague and paper I states one epistemic and one practical implication of methodology.Paper II focuses on the COPD and discusses two specific planning heuristics. The first relates to the Systemic approach and the second heuristic relates to the third approach denoted the ‘Causalist’ approach within Operational Art. A methodological contradiction exists between these specific heuristics and paper II states one epistemic and three practical implications of methodology.Briefly, this thesis implies that parts of NATO’s description of the OLPP suffers from a methodological contradiction. Hence, a suggestion is to revise parts of the AJP 5 and the COPD. The thesis also suggest the development of a “NATO handbook of methodology” to better explain methodological implications on military operations planning and the “how to” of military problem-solving.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Grüne-Yanoff, Till
(författare)
-
Action explanations are not inherently normative
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Theoria. - : Wiley. - 0040-5817 .- 1558-5816 .- 0040-5825 .- 1755-2567. ; 74:1, s. 60-78
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Inherent normativity is the claim that intentional action explanations necessarily have to comply with normatively understood rationality constraints on the ascribed propositional attitudes. This paper argues against inherent normativity in three steps. First, it presents three examples of actions successfully explained with propositional attitudes, where the ascribed attitudes violate relevant rationality constraints. Second, it argues that the inference rules that systematise propositional attitudes are qualitatively different from rationality constraints both in their justification and their recipients. Third, it rejects additional conditions on propositional attitudes, which purport to necessitate a normative commitment. Thus, inherent normativity is rejected; and with it the claim that intentional action explanations differ substantially from other explanations because they are inherently normative.
|
|
| 10. |
- Grüne-Yanoff, Till
(författare)
-
Agent-Based Models as Policy Decision Tools: The Case of Smallpox Vaccination
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Simulation and Gaming: An Interdisciplinary Journal. - : SAGE Publications. - 1046-8781. ; 42:2, s. 225-242
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Agent-based simulation (ABS) studies have recently been employed to support policy decisions. This article addresses the particular potentials and problems that ABS faces in this usage. First, the author warns against taking "familiarity" with specific ABS as a criterion for having confidence in the model's policy recommendations. Second, he shows that specific epistemic issues-in particular the high number of detailed simulated systems-require additional reflection on which decision rules to choose for policy decisions based on ABS. Third, the author points out directions in which the construction and uses of ABS in policy decision could be improved. Each of these issues is illustrated by simulation studies undertaken to investigate smallpox vaccination policies.
|
|
