Browsing by Author "Ritchie, Jack"

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    On Non-epistemic Values in Climate Science for Decision Support
    (2021) Lee, Jessica; Ritchie, Jack
    Climate change is an ever-increasing threat to humanity, making the need for decision relevant, actionable climate science more and more pressing. With this need comes pressure to articulate what constitutes responsible practice in climate science for decision support. This requires in part understanding the role that values should play in socially relevant science. My aim in this thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of the role of non-epistemic values in climate science for decision support. To achieve this, I bring philosophical discussions of values in science into conversation with elements that are particular to climate science as a practice. I begin by drawing on work by philosophers of science to argue for three ways in which values can be good for science: they can help scientists meet their moral obligations through managing inductive risk; they can promote the multiple aims of research; and the presence of diverse values can promote objectivity. I apply these arguments in the context of climate science for decision support and present a range of examples to show where in the scientific process values can appropriately inform choices that climate scientists make. I then identify and examine three important value-related conflicts that can arise, even when conditions seem right for values to influence choices in science. These conflicts, which have been largely overlooked in philosophical work, include conflicts between epistemic and social values; conflicts related to the multiple roles that scientists might occupy in society; and conflicts between personal values and community values taken to regulate scientific practice. I argue that these conflicts have the potential to make value-based choices difficult to resolve. Some commentators have recently raised the possibility that when value-based disagreements arise climate science could be more like medicine in its management of risk. I take this suggestion seriously and conclude by proposing that climate scientists ought to explicitly embrace some nonepistemic values, such as human security, as constitutive of their field. I respond to potential objections to this proposal, arguing that it would not be a radical change to science, that it would not undermine science's epistemic integrity, and that it need not result in the promotion of politically contentious values. I then discuss how embracing non-epistemic values as constitutive of the field could have implications for practice and could contribute to the development of a code of ethics for climate scientists.
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    Permission to believe: descriptive and prescriptive beliefs in the Clifford/James debate
    (2020) Lawrence, Christopher; Ritchie, Jack
    William Clifford's ‘The Ethics of Belief' proposes an ‘evidence principle': …it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence (1877, 1879:186). Its universal, absolutist language seems to hide something fundamentally correct. We first argue for excluding prescriptive beliefs, and then consider further apparent counter-examples, culminating in more restricted, qualified wording: If anything is morally wrong, then it is morally wrong within the category of descriptive belief to believe anything knowingly or irresponsibly on insufficient evidence in the absence of any conflicting and overriding moral imperative except when the unjustified believing is outside the believer's voluntary control. We test this against William James's counter-claim for qualified legitimate overbelief (‘The Will To Believe', 1896, 2000), and suggest additional benefits of adopting an evidence principle in relation to the structured combinations of descriptive and prescriptive components common to religious belief. In search of criteria for ‘sufficient' and ‘insufficient' evidence we then consider an ‘enriched' Bayesianism within normative decision theory, which helps explain good doxastic practice under risk. ‘Lottery paradox' cases however undermine the idea of an evidence threshold: we would say we justifiably believe one hypothesis while saying another, at the same credence level, is only very probably true. We consider approaches to ‘pragmatic encroachment', suggesting a parallel between ‘practical interest' and the ‘personal utility' denominating the stakes of the imaginary gambles which Bayesian credences can be illustrated as. But personal utility seems inappropriately agent-relative for a moral principle. We return to Clifford's conception of our shared responsibilities to our shared epistemic asset. This ‘practical interest we ought to have' offers an explanation for our duty, as members of an epistemic community, to get and evaluate evidence; and for the ‘utility' stakes of Bayesian imaginary gambles. Helped by Edward Craig's (1990, 1999) ‘state-of-nature' theory of knowledge it provides a minimum threshold to avoid insufficient evidence and suggests an aspirational criterion of sufficient evidence: Wherever possible, a level of evidence sufficient to support the level of justification required to be a good informant, whatever the particular circumstances of the inquirer.
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    The evolution of biological theories: explaining the success of Mendelian genetics, Darwin’s Theory of natural selection and their synthesis
    (2019) Elliott, Mats; Ritchie, Jack
    Darwin’s theory of natural selection was not widely accepted in the biological community until its synthesis with Mendelian genetics. I investigate the history of both sciences, with the aim discovering why Mendelian genetics and the synthesis were scientifically successful. One possible explanation for this is given by constructivism, the view that developments in science are decided not by rational reasons, but by contingent factors. A sophisticated version of this view is defended by Gregory Radick, who argues that Weldonian biometry, a rival theory of inheritance, could have supplanted Mendelism. For Radick, the success of Mendelism and the corresponding decline of biometry can be explained by historical circumstances, such as Weldon’s untimely death and his inability to recruit talented students. Another popular philosophical explanation of scientific developments is scientific realism, whose proponents argue that scientific success can be explained by the truth of scientific theories. More sophisticated versions of realism, such as Weisberg’s, take the routine scientific distortion of truth (idealization) into account. I argue from the history of genetics that neither constructivism nor realism, sophisticated or otherwise, can help us understand the success of Mendelian genetics. Instead, I argue that there were rational reasons in favor of Mendelian genetics, even if it was not a true theory of inheritance. I further conclude that the synthesis was successful because Mendelian genetics theoretically enriched Darwin’s theory of natural selection. This enrichment solved serious empirical and conceptual problems for Darwin’s theory, showing that we can also understand the success of the synthesis without appeal to broad realist or constructivist views.
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    Voluntarism, values and community : an intersubjective reading of Bas C. van Fraassen's The empirical stance
    (2013) Braae, Elizabeth; Ritchie, Jack
    In The Empirical Stance, Bas C. van Fraassen suggests that philosophical positions include non-factual things like values and attitudes: they are "stances" rather than factual theses. Choosing between stances is not a matter of reason or rational compulsion; rather, we choose the stance that best reflects or expresses our values. For Dien Ho and Anja Jauernig, however, this reduces philosophy to a subjective expression of personal preference (subjectivism) and, moreover, reduces philosophical debate to an irresolvable value-based dispute (relativism). In this dissertation, I offer an intersubjective reading of van Fraassen. In doing so, I seek to extend what I think is an underdeveloped appeal to community in his work. Approaching van Fraassen with reference to community helps us to appreciate better his position (comprising his voluntarism and voluntarist epistemology, permissive rationality, and stance philosophy) and, as I hope to show, to respond to subjectivist and relativist concerns. In developing this community-based account, I first consider Brandom's model of reciprocal recognition. This gives us an understanding of stance choice as a process of mutually recognising and committing to particular values and attitudes. In choosing the empirical stance, say, I recognise and commit to the values of the empiricist community. In turn, this community recognises my commitment and acknowledges me as an empiricist, as an adherent of the empirical stance. In Brandom's model, then, we find an account of stance choice as a community matter rather than something purely subjective. This leaves the relativist issue unresolved: how can we defend our stance choice to another community, whose members perhaps do not share our relevant values? In addressing this, I consider Davidson's radical interpretation and his principle of charity. As Davidson shows us, if we want to interpret (and hence communicate with) another being, we must assume a shared background of agreement. Here I suggest that we might broaden this background agreement to include not only beliefs but also things like values and commitments. In this way, if I want to communicate with someone from another community, if I want to defend my values and stance choice to this being, then I must charitably assume that we share a common background of beliefs and values. At the very least, broadening the principle helps us to make further sense of van Fraassen's own response to Ho's relativist fears. Lastly I consider the epistemic issue of scientific and conceptual revolutions, in particular of the radical changes that are involved, in the context of community. I look at the role of emotion in van Fraassen's voluntarism and its connection to his notion of the "unfollowable rule". I suggest that further reflection on this connection might help us to make sense of drastic and emotional changes in perspective as a matter of community, since the unfollowable rule itself is community-based. As I hope to show, then, much light can be thrown upon van Fraassen The Empirical Stance by considering in detail the role of community and the theme of intersubjectivity in his work. This helps us to appreciate his position and offers him a genuine and detailed way to respond to the twin worries of subjectivism and relativism.
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    "Whether God exists"
    (2017) Ostrowick, John M; Brown, Campbell; Richmond, Alasdair; Ritchie, Jack
    This thesis presents inductive and probabilistic arguments for and against theism. The thesis claims that the only compelling evidentialist argument for theism is the cosmological argument from Richard Swinburne. Swinburne's argument is examined from a Bayesian perspective, and it is found that we can't fix the prior probabilities that Swinburne needs, not even by his appeal to simplicity. We then explain that this undermines P-inductive arguments, in particular, the cosmological argument. Then we consider whether theism offers a good explanation for the universe, or has a high likelihood, even if God is not simple. We find that there is no good reason to say that theism explains the universe better than competing theories. We therefore conclude that there is no C-inductive argument from cosmology to theism either. We then debate the physicalist explanations of the universe, which turn out to not help the atheist. We might feel that this leaves us in an argumentative stalemate, but in the final chapter, we turn to the problem of evil. We discuss the possible existence of gratuitous evils (evils which achieve no good ends). We then argue that the most plausible response to gratuitous evil is Skeptical Theism, that is, that we are unable to know God's intentions. But that stance undermines the cosmological argument which requires that we know God's intentions. We then conclude that, given that the cosmological argument is the most compelling evidential argument for theism, and that it fails, that the theist should abandon natural theology. Therefore, holding the fideist/voluntarist position, or that God is in fact indifferent to us, are found to be stronger stances.