Population ethics studies the tradeoff between the total number of people who will ever live, and their quality of life. But widely accepted theories in modern cosmology say that spacetime is probably infinite. In this case, its population is also probably infinite, so the quantity/quality tradeoff of population ethics is no longer meaningful. Instead, we face the problem of how to ethically evaluate an infinite population of people dispersed throughout time and space. I propose spatiotemporal Cesàro average utility as a way to make this evaluation, and axiomatically characterize it.
{"title":"Population ethics in an infinite universe","authors":"M. Pivato","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3897345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3897345","url":null,"abstract":"Population ethics studies the tradeoff between the total number of people who will ever live, and their quality of life. But widely accepted theories in modern cosmology say that spacetime is probably infinite. In this case, its population is also probably infinite, so the quantity/quality tradeoff of population ethics is no longer meaningful. Instead, we face the problem of how to ethically evaluate an infinite population of people dispersed throughout time and space. I propose spatiotemporal Cesàro average utility as a way to make this evaluation, and axiomatically characterize it.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131343993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The European Union (EU) has a strong reputation and track record for being proactive in the development of guidelines and regulations for the ethical use of AI generally. In this paper, we discuss the development of an AI and ethical framework by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), for the European insurance market. EIOPA’s earlier report on big data analytics (EIOPA 2019) provided an important foundation to analyse and evaluate the complex range of issues and ethical problems associated with the wave of new AI technologies being deployed in insurance such as behavioural insurance, parametric products, novel pricing and risk assessment algorithms, e-service and claims management, which exploit big data and machine learning. In this paper we present an overview of the use of AI in insurance based on the full range of insurance applications throughout the insurance value chain. A general discussion of ethics and AI is illustrated with the specific use-case of insurance, and a new hierarchical model is presented that describes insurance as a complex system that can be analysed by taking a layered, multi-level approach, on which ethical issues can be mapped directly to specific level(s).
{"title":"Creating Ethics Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics: The Case of the European Consumer Insurance Market","authors":"C. Holland, Martin Mullins, Martin Cunneen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3808207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3808207","url":null,"abstract":"The European Union (EU) has a strong reputation and track record for being proactive in the development of guidelines and regulations for the ethical use of AI generally. In this paper, we discuss the development of an AI and ethical framework by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), for the European insurance market. EIOPA’s earlier report on big data analytics (EIOPA 2019) provided an important foundation to analyse and evaluate the complex range of issues and ethical problems associated with the wave of new AI technologies being deployed in insurance such as behavioural insurance, parametric products, novel pricing and risk assessment algorithms, e-service and claims management, which exploit big data and machine learning. In this paper we present an overview of the use of AI in insurance based on the full range of insurance applications throughout the insurance value chain. A general discussion of ethics and AI is illustrated with the specific use-case of insurance, and a new hierarchical model is presented that describes insurance as a complex system that can be analysed by taking a layered, multi-level approach, on which ethical issues can be mapped directly to specific level(s).","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":" 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120828525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What you ought to do is sensitive to circumstances that are not under your control, or to luck. So plain luck is often morally significant. Still, some of us think that there's no moral luck - that praiseworthiness and blameworthiness are not sensitive to luck. What explains this asymmetry between the luck-sensitivity of ought-judgments and the luck-insensitivity of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness judgments? In this paper I suggest an explanation, relying heavily on the analogy between rational luck and moral luck. I argue that some rational assessments - like how well one plays the hand one's dealt - are luck-insensitive; that we have reason to believe some moral evaluations are closely analogous to such luck-insensitive rational assessments, and furthermore that blameworthiness and praiseworthiness judgments are probably precisely those luck-insensitive moral evaluations. I also draw an implication regarding agent-regret.
{"title":"Playing the Hand You're Dealt: How Moral Luck Is Different from Morally Significant Plain Luck (And Probably Doesn’t Exist)","authors":"D. Enoch","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3371739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3371739","url":null,"abstract":"What you ought to do is sensitive to circumstances that are not under your control, or to luck. So plain luck is often morally significant. Still, some of us think that there's no moral luck - that praiseworthiness and blameworthiness are not sensitive to luck. What explains this asymmetry between the luck-sensitivity of ought-judgments and the luck-insensitivity of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness judgments? \u0000 \u0000In this paper I suggest an explanation, relying heavily on the analogy between rational luck and moral luck. I argue that some rational assessments - like how well one plays the hand one's dealt - are luck-insensitive; that we have reason to believe some moral evaluations are closely analogous to such luck-insensitive rational assessments, and furthermore that blameworthiness and praiseworthiness judgments are probably precisely those luck-insensitive moral evaluations. I also draw an implication regarding agent-regret.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121411645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Classical virtue theory has received limited attention in economics. The paper demonstrates its fruitfulness for economic and legal analysis by linking the traditional ethical literature with modern law and economics. Virtues are interpreted as a theory of moral psychology, and applied to economic theory, with comparisons against other behavioral models in economics. It is found that the virtue factor has major significance in economic life.
The paper also outlines a general framework for the analysis of law from a virtue-based perspective, showing how optimal legal design depends on the level of virtue of the citizens. Six general principles are identified: (1) virtue goes together with more freedom, while lack of virtue calls for more legal and regulatory constraints; (2) virtue goes together with more demanding law, while lack of virtue calls for less demanding law; (3) virtue goes together with more precise laws, while lack of virtue calls for less legal precision; (4) virtue goes together with broad standards, while lack of virtue calls for narrow rules; (5) virtue goes together with lighter enforcement and sanctions, while lack of virtue calls for harsher punishments; and (6) virtue goes together with more participation in law-making and law-enforcement, while lack of virtue implies less participation.
It is shown that there are several ways of gathering information about the level of virtue in society, and that laws and regulations may be designed in ways that account for the moral heterogeneity of the citizens. Finally, it is found the law plays a significant role in promoting and safeguarding virtues, but legal perfectionism may be counterproductive.
{"title":"Law and Virtue: An Economic Analysis","authors":"Oskari Juurikkala","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3296973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3296973","url":null,"abstract":"Classical virtue theory has received limited attention in economics. The paper demonstrates its fruitfulness for economic and legal analysis by linking the traditional ethical literature with modern law and economics. Virtues are interpreted as a theory of moral psychology, and applied to economic theory, with comparisons against other behavioral models in economics. It is found that the virtue factor has major significance in economic life.<br><br>The paper also outlines a general framework for the analysis of law from a virtue-based perspective, showing how optimal legal design depends on the level of virtue of the citizens. Six general principles are identified: (1) virtue goes together with more freedom, while lack of virtue calls for more legal and regulatory constraints; (2) virtue goes together with more demanding law, while lack of virtue calls for less demanding law; (3) virtue goes together with more precise laws, while lack of virtue calls for less legal precision; (4) virtue goes together with broad standards, while lack of virtue calls for narrow rules; (5) virtue goes together with lighter enforcement and sanctions, while lack of virtue calls for harsher punishments; and (6) virtue goes together with more participation in law-making and law-enforcement, while lack of virtue implies less participation.<br><br>It is shown that there are several ways of gathering information about the level of virtue in society, and that laws and regulations may be designed in ways that account for the moral heterogeneity of the citizens. Finally, it is found the law plays a significant role in promoting and safeguarding virtues, but legal perfectionism may be counterproductive.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123917881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The authors conducted a survey of 502 Turkish and Australian undergraduate and graduate business and economic students to determine their views regarding the ethics of tax evasion. These two groups were selected on the premise that their views represented the perceptions of two very different cultures, which has not been investigated in previous studies. The survey instrument required students to indicate their level of agreeableness to 18 general statements representing various scenarios in the socio-economic environment. The statements in the survey reflected the three main viewpoints regarding the ethics of tax evasion which have emerged from the literature to date. The results of the study show that although Turkish scores are significantly different from the Australian scores, both Turkish and Australian respondents believe that tax evasion can be ethically justifiable in certain situations, although some arguments are stronger than others.
{"title":"Attitudes Towards Tax Evasion in Turkey and Australia: A Comparative Study","authors":"Robert W. McGee, K. Devos, Serkan Benk","doi":"10.3390/SOCSCI5010010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/SOCSCI5010010","url":null,"abstract":"The authors conducted a survey of 502 Turkish and Australian undergraduate and graduate business and economic students to determine their views regarding the ethics of tax evasion. These two groups were selected on the premise that their views represented the perceptions of two very different cultures, which has not been investigated in previous studies. The survey instrument required students to indicate their level of agreeableness to 18 general statements representing various scenarios in the socio-economic environment. The statements in the survey reflected the three main viewpoints regarding the ethics of tax evasion which have emerged from the literature to date. The results of the study show that although Turkish scores are significantly different from the Australian scores, both Turkish and Australian respondents believe that tax evasion can be ethically justifiable in certain situations, although some arguments are stronger than others.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115397475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We assume like Bergstrom (1989) and Dijkstra (2007) that each child’s utility is treated as a normal good in the altruistic head’s utility function, and show that if utility functions lead to Almost Transferable Utility children can manipulate the tradeoff between their own utility and the parent’s utility through their own actions, but they have an incentive to maximize the altruistic head’s utility if the altruistic head also considers children’s utilities as Hicksian substitutes and hence the rotten kid theorem holds. A special class of such altruistic utility functions that treat utilities of children as normal and Hicksian substitutes are the Generalized Utilitarian Welfare functions.
{"title":"The Rotten Kid Theorem and Almost Transferable Utility","authors":"E. Gugl, J. Leroux","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2717422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2717422","url":null,"abstract":"We assume like Bergstrom (1989) and Dijkstra (2007) that each child’s utility is treated as a normal good in the altruistic head’s utility function, and show that if utility functions lead to Almost Transferable Utility children can manipulate the tradeoff between their own utility and the parent’s utility through their own actions, but they have an incentive to maximize the altruistic head’s utility if the altruistic head also considers children’s utilities as Hicksian substitutes and hence the rotten kid theorem holds. A special class of such altruistic utility functions that treat utilities of children as normal and Hicksian substitutes are the Generalized Utilitarian Welfare functions.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133843931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of opinion in Iran. A survey of master students of accounting was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest in Iran. Male scores were compared to female scores to determine whether the responses differed by gender.
{"title":"The Ethics of Tax Evasion: A Case Study of Opinion in Iran","authors":"Robert W. McGee, Mahdi Nazemi Ardakani","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1323059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1323059","url":null,"abstract":"The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of opinion in Iran. A survey of master students of accounting was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest in Iran. Male scores were compared to female scores to determine whether the responses differed by gender.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117299754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper provides a welfare analysis of trade liberalization based upon the moral principles of utilitarianism. The history of the moral philosophy of utilitarianism is described including its introduction into what became known as Cambridge welfare economics. The differences between this school of thought and what would later develop as modern welfare analysis are discussed. Essentially, the Cambridge economists were not particularly disturbed by the assumptions of cardinal utility and interpersonal comparisons and argued that these assumptions added more than they took away. Next the mathematical form of a utilitarian utility and social welfare function are described and the values of the parameters are assigned based upon the writings of moral philosophers. Next the distributional consequences of trade liberalization are developed and the social welfare implications are derived. Basically it is concluded that trade policy changes produce large distributional changes relative to efficiency gains, and the gains go to individuals with significantly higher income than the lossers (in the developed economies). With a realistic concave utility function underlying the social welfare function, the benefits of trade liberalization are quite small if not negative. The policy implication is that trade liberalization without sizable redistribution is unlikely to actually (as opposed to potentially) increase social welfare. It is argued that this approach to trade policy analysis is much more useful in formulating trade policy than the current use of modern welfare- trade policy analysis commonly used and taught in most universities.
{"title":"A Utilitarian Welfare Analysis of Trade Liberalization","authors":"Robert C. Shelburne","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2285046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2285046","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides a welfare analysis of trade liberalization based upon the moral principles of utilitarianism. The history of the moral philosophy of utilitarianism is described including its introduction into what became known as Cambridge welfare economics. The differences between this school of thought and what would later develop as modern welfare analysis are discussed. Essentially, the Cambridge economists were not particularly disturbed by the assumptions of cardinal utility and interpersonal comparisons and argued that these assumptions added more than they took away. Next the mathematical form of a utilitarian utility and social welfare function are described and the values of the parameters are assigned based upon the writings of moral philosophers. Next the distributional consequences of trade liberalization are developed and the social welfare implications are derived. Basically it is concluded that trade policy changes produce large distributional changes relative to efficiency gains, and the gains go to individuals with significantly higher income than the lossers (in the developed economies). With a realistic concave utility function underlying the social welfare function, the benefits of trade liberalization are quite small if not negative. The policy implication is that trade liberalization without sizable redistribution is unlikely to actually (as opposed to potentially) increase social welfare. It is argued that this approach to trade policy analysis is much more useful in formulating trade policy than the current use of modern welfare- trade policy analysis commonly used and taught in most universities.","PeriodicalId":103979,"journal":{"name":"PRN: Normative Ethics (Topic)","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124929357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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