Martin Peterson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3943408 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martin Peterson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martin |
| FAMILY NAME | Peterson |
| SIGNATURE | PETERSON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0014-9684 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Why Nuclear Weapons Are Morally Neutral Means and Humans Bear Full Responsibility for Their Use
Aligning Technology with Human Values: The Measurement Problem
Is an Eloquent Love Letter Written by AI Better than a Clunky One Written by Your Partner: A comment on “Second-Person Authenticity and the Mediating Role of AI: A Moral Challenge for Human-to-Human R…
Ethics in the Gray Area: A Gradualist Theory of Right and Wrong
Value Change, Energy Systems, and Rational Choice: The Expected Center of Gravity Principle
What Do Technical Functions Supervene On
According to the dual nature thesis, technical artifacts have a dual nature: they are material objects that have a material base, but also functions that depend on their intentional history, in particular their intended and actual use. In an influential paper, Houkes and Meijers argue that the dual nature thesis does not square well with the seemingly plausible idea that the function of a technological artifact supervenes on its material base. Th…
Moral Rightness Comes in Degrees
This article questions the traditional view that moral rightness and wrongness are discrete predicates with sharp boundaries. I contend that moral rightness and wrongness come in degrees: Some acts are somewhat right and somewhat wrong. My argument is based on the assumption that meaning tracks use. If an overwhelming majority of competent language users frequently say that some acts are a bit right and a bit wrong, this indicates that rightness …
Can we Use Conceptual Spaces to Model Moral Principles
Can the theory of conceptual spaces developed by Peter Gärdenfors (2000, 2014) and others be applied to moral issues? Martin Peterson (2017) argues that several moral principles can be construed as regions in a shared similarity space, but Kristin Shrader-Frechette (2017) and Gert-Jan Lokhorst (2018) question Peterson’s claim. They argue that the moral similarity judgments used to construct the space are underspecified and subjective. In this pap…
Friendly AI
In this paper we discuss what we believe to be one of the most important features of near-future AIs, namely their capacity to behave in a friendly manner to humans. Our analysis of what it means for an AI to behave in a friendly manner does not presuppose that proper friendships between humans and AI systems could exist. That would require reciprocity, which is beyond the reach of near-future AI systems. Rather, we defend the claim that social A…
Abortion Is Neither Right Nor Wrong
Ethics for Engineers
The Ethics of Technology
This book develops an analytic ethics of technology based on a geometric account of moral principles. The author argues that geometric concepts such as points, lines, and planes are useful for clarifying the structure and scope of five moral principles: (1) the cost-benefit principle, (2) the precautionary principle, (3) the sustainability principle, (4) the fairness principle, and (5) the autonomy principle. The geometric approach derives its no…
The Precautionary Principle: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral Principles
This chapter identifies two very different paradigm cases for the Precautionary Principle that define two separate versions of the principle: the deliberative and the epistemic. I argue that the deliberative version should not be identified with the maximin principle but rather be interpreted as an output filter that transforms the original description of a case into a new case in which all options that may lead to outcomes below a certain thresh…
The modal account of luck revisited
According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck [e.g. Pritchard (2005)], an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant conditions for that event are the same as in the actual world. This paper argues, with reference to a novel variety of counterexample, that it is a mistake to focus, when assessing a given event for luckiness, on even…
The Prisoner's Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma is one of the most fiercely debated thought experiments in philosophy and the social sciences, presenting the simple insight that when two or more agents interact, the actions that most benefit each individual may not benefit the group. The fact that when you do what is best for you, and I do what is best for me, we end up in a situation that is worse for both of us makes the Prisoner's Dilemma relevant to a broad range of …
Introduction: Values and norms in modeling
The Last Man Argument Revisited
Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision Theory, Ethics, and Social Implications of Risk
Innovation: One step ahead of the research community
Innovation: one step ahead of the research community." Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 25(1), p. 9
A computer simulation of the argument from disagreement
In this paper we shed new light on the Argument from Disagreement by putting it to test in a computer simulation. According to this argument widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by any moral facts, either because no such facts exist or because they are epistemically inaccessible or inefficacious for some other reason. Our simulation shows that if our moral opinions were infl…
Animal Ethics Based on Friendship
This article discusses some aspects of animal ethics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics point of view. Because the notion of friendship (philia) is central to Aristotle’s ethical theory, the focus of the article is whether humans and animals can be friends. It is argued that new empirical findings in cognitive ethology indicate that animals actually do fulfill the Aristotelian condition for friendship based on mutual advantage. The practical ethi…
Animals and Friendship: A Reply to Rowlands
Can humans be friends with animals? If so, what would the moral implications of such friendship be? In a previous issue of this journal, we argued that humans can indeed be friends with animals and that such friendships are morally valuable. The present article is a comment on Mark Rowlands’s reply to our original article. We argue that our original argument is not undermined by Rowlands’s attack
Pure Time Preference
Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preferenc…
Cost-benefit analysis and non-utilitarian ethics
Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output…
A Royal Road to Consequentialism?
Five charges against the precautionary principle
We defend the precautionary principle against five common charges, namely that it is ill-defined, absolutist, and a value judgement, increases risk-taking, and marginalizes science. We argue, first, that the precautionary principle is, in principle, no more vague or ill-defined than other decision principles and like them it can be made precise through elaboration and practice. Second, the precautionary principle need not be absolutist in the way…
Parity, Clumpiness and Rational Choice
Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central pre…
Neglected and overemphasized risks: The opinions of risk professionals
Research on risks has mainly been devoted to detailed analyses of such risks that are subject to public debate and policy decision making. However, many if not most of the risks that are now the subject of regulation were once neglected. Experts in conjunction with regulators have a crucial role in putting risks on the policy agenda. But what views do experts have on the matter of attention to risks? In order to answer this question risk assessme…
The modal account of luck revisited
According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck [e.g. Pritchard (2005)], an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant conditions for that event are the same as in the actual world. This paper argues, with reference to a novel variety of counterexample, that it is a mistake to focus, when assessing a given event for luckiness, on even…
The Historical Context of the Evolution of National Research Systems and International RTD Collaboration
A historical overview of European science and technology suggests the existence of two parallel trends: those of nationalization and de-nationalization. Since the Enlightenment, besides the modernist universalist perspective on science we find nationalist pressures pushing the idea of socially constructed technology, thus generating scientific results determined by national (cultural) factors. Nationalization and de-nationalization thrive togethe…
Innovation: One step ahead of the research community
Innovation: one step ahead of the research community." Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 25(1), p. 9
Pure Time Preference
Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preferenc…
Cost-benefit analysis and non-utilitarian ethics
Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output…
Can Consequentialists Honour the Special Moral Status of Persons
It is widely believed that consequentialists are committed to the claim that persons are mere containers for well-being. In this article I challenge this view by proposing a new version of consequentialism, according to which the identities of persons matter. The new theory, two-dimensional prioritarianism, is a natural extension of traditional prioritarianism. Two-dimensional prioritarianism holds that well-being matters more for persons who are…
Equality and Priority
This article argues that, contrary to the received view, prioritarianism and egalitarianism are not jointly incompatible theories in normative ethics. By introducing a distinction between weighing and aggregating, the authors show that the seemingly conflicting intuitions underlying prioritarianism and egalitarianism are consistent. The upshot is a combined position, equality-prioritarianism, which takes both prioritarian and egalitarian consider…
On the application of rights‐based moral theories to siting controversies
In this paper we discuss how rights‐based moral theories can increase our understanding of siting controversies. It is argued that the notion of residual obligations can be used to overcome, at least in part, the conflict between the individual right not to be exposed to involuntary risks arising from e.g. the establishment of a new industry, and the rights of industries and other large organizations to build plants that are associated with risks…
Transformative Decision Rules, Permutability, and Non-Sequential Framing of Decision Problems
Reports
Central America, by Cleto Di Giovanni, Jr. and Alexander Kruger Stockholm: Nonaligned and Nervous, by Martin Peterson Ankara: Hazardous Straits, by Kenneth Mackenzie Toronto: Quebec and the Unity of Canada, by Stanley Meisler Lisbon: Shifting Coalitions, by Michael A. Samuels
The family farm”: A review of a central concept in western European agricultural politics
A remodelling of university roles? Some tendencies in Sweden
Environmental policy in the context of swedish political culture
The article describes the development of Swedish environmental policy by paying attention to the context of Swedish political culture. It describes the successes and, mainly, the failures of Sweden's environmental policy since the late sixties and traces its less‐than‐satisfactory state to the political culture of a welfare state which for a long time tended to view environmental concerns as likely to upset the socio‐economic welfare policies bas…
What is the relevance of regionalism in a federal European context? Some problematizing aspects
Regionalism has come into a new light. Gradually during the post‐war period, regionalism has acquired an image of being effectively neutral and capable of replacing the Junctions of other political units. But even though regionalism has become substantially boosted by the European Union and is a favoured topic in the arsenal of federalist arguments, its final outcome remains highly unpredictable. This article explores the many faces and tasks of …
Collaboration and competition
This brief paper provides a concise overview of the historical development of European research systems. Although social science has recently discovered national science and research systems as a topic of study, the historical origins of different national systems is as old as European science itself. The article provides a condensed tour of the major historical developments that have contributed to shaping the present European research landscape…
Biography and social exclusion in Europe: Experiences and life journeys
Throughout Europe, standardised approaches to social policy and practice are being radically questioned and modified. Beginning from the narrative detail of individual lives, this book rethinks welfare predicaments, emphasising gender, generation, ethnic and class implications of economic and social deregulation. Taking an innovative socio-biographical approach to comparative social policy, it argues that understanding individually differentiated…
An argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility
The main result of this paper is a formal argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the law of large numbers. Unlike the well‐known arguments by Savage and von Neumann & Morgenstern, this argument does not presuppose the sure‐thing principle or the independence axiom. The principal idea is to use the concept of transformative decision rules for decomposing the principle of maximizing expected utility into a s…
Five charges against the precautionary principle
We defend the precautionary principle against five common charges, namely that it is ill-defined, absolutist, and a value judgement, increases risk-taking, and marginalizes science. We argue, first, that the precautionary principle is, in principle, no more vague or ill-defined than other decision principles and like them it can be made precise through elaboration and practice. Second, the precautionary principle need not be absolutist in the way…
The Historical Context of the Evolution of National Research Systems and International RTD Collaboration
A historical overview of European science and technology suggests the existence of two parallel trends: those of nationalization and de-nationalization. Since the Enlightenment, besides the modernist universalist perspective on science we find nationalist pressures pushing the idea of socially constructed technology, thus generating scientific results determined by national (cultural) factors. Nationalization and de-nationalization thrive togethe…
On the application of rights-based moral theories to siting controversies
On the application of rights‐based moral theories to siting controversies
In this paper we discuss how rights‐based moral theories can increase our understanding of siting controversies. It is argued that the notion of residual obligations can be used to overcome, at least in part, the conflict between the individual right not to be exposed to involuntary risks arising from e.g. the establishment of a new industry, and the rights of industries and other large organizations to build plants that are associated with risks…
Transformative Decision Rules, Permutability, and Non-Sequential Framing of Decision Problems
Neglected and overemphasized risks: The opinions of risk professionals
Research on risks has mainly been devoted to detailed analyses of such risks that are subject to public debate and policy decision making. However, many if not most of the risks that are now the subject of regulation were once neglected. Experts in conjunction with regulators have a crucial role in putting risks on the policy agenda. But what views do experts have on the matter of attention to risks? In order to answer this question risk assessme…
Equality and Priority
This article argues that, contrary to the received view, prioritarianism and egalitarianism are not jointly incompatible theories in normative ethics. By introducing a distinction between weighing and aggregating, the authors show that the seemingly conflicting intuitions underlying prioritarianism and egalitarianism are consistent. The upshot is a combined position, equality-prioritarianism, which takes both prioritarian and egalitarian consider…
Order-Independent Transformative Decision Rules
Parity, Clumpiness and Rational Choice
Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central pre…
An Introduction to Decision Theory
This introduction to decision theory offers comprehensive and accessible discussions of decision-making under ignorance and risk, the foundations of utility theory, the debate over subjective and objective probability, Bayesianism, causal decision theory, game theory, and social choice theory. No mathematical skills are assumed, and all concepts and results are explained in non-technical and intuitive as well as more formal ways. There are over 1…
An introduction to decision theory
A Royal Road to Consequentialism?
Can Consequentialists Honour the Special Moral Status of Persons
It is widely believed that consequentialists are committed to the claim that persons are mere containers for well-being. In this article I challenge this view by proposing a new version of consequentialism, according to which the identities of persons matter. The new theory, two-dimensional prioritarianism, is a natural extension of traditional prioritarianism. Two-dimensional prioritarianism holds that well-being matters more for persons who are…
Animal Ethics Based on Friendship
This article discusses some aspects of animal ethics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics point of view. Because the notion of friendship (philia) is central to Aristotle’s ethical theory, the focus of the article is whether humans and animals can be friends. It is argued that new empirical findings in cognitive ethology indicate that animals actually do fulfill the Aristotelian condition for friendship based on mutual advantage. The practical ethi…
Animals and Friendship: A Reply to Rowlands
Can humans be friends with animals? If so, what would the moral implications of such friendship be? In a previous issue of this journal, we argued that humans can indeed be friends with animals and that such friendships are morally valuable. The present article is a comment on Mark Rowlands’s reply to our original article. We argue that our original argument is not undermined by Rowlands’s attack
Pure Time Preference
Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preferenc…
Cost-benefit analysis and non-utilitarian ethics
Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output…
Epistemology (31 works) · Philosophy (27 works) · Political science (22 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Computer Science (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Mathematics (14 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works)