Gustaf Arrhenius

Last updated

Gustaf Svante Henning Arrhenius, born June 28, 1966, is a Swedish philosopher.

He is a professor of practical philosophy at Stockholm University, holding a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in practical philosophy from Uppsala University. [1]

Arrhenius is known for his research in moral philosophy and political philosophy, with a particular focus on issues related to future generations. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] His research in population ethics has had a significant impact, especially through the impossibility theorems he has proven in the field [7] [8] and his introduction of the Sadistic Conclusion. [9] [10] [11]

Since November 2014, Arrhenius has been the director of the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm. [12]

Related Research Articles

Hedonism is a family of philosophical views that prioritize pleasure. Psychological hedonism is the theory that the underlying motivation of all human behavior is to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. As a form of egoism, it suggests that people only help others if they expect a personal benefit. Axiological hedonism is the view that pleasure is the sole source of intrinsic value. It asserts that other things, like knowledge and money, only have value insofar as they produce pleasure and reduce pain. This view divides into quantitative hedonism, which only considers the intensity and duration of pleasures, and qualitative hedonism, which holds that the value of pleasures also depends on their quality. The closely related position of prudential hedonism states that pleasure and pain are the only factors of well-being. Ethical hedonism applies axiological hedonism to morality, arguing that people have a moral obligation to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Utilitarian versions assert that the goal is to increase overall happiness for everyone, whereas egoistic versions state that each person should only pursue their own pleasure. Outside the academic context, hedonism is a pejorative term for an egoistic lifestyle seeking short-term gratification.

Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense.

Value theory is the systematic study of values. Also called axiology, it examines the nature, sources, and types of values. As a branch of philosophy, it has interdisciplinary applications in fields such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

In ethics, welfarism is a theory that well-being, what is good for someone or what makes a life worth living, is the only thing that has intrinsic value. In its most general sense, it can be defined as descriptive theory about what has value but some philosophers also understand welfarism as a moral theory, that what one should do is ultimately determined by considerations of well-being. The right action, policy or rule is the one leading to the maximal amount of well-being. In this sense, it is often seen as a type of consequentialism, and can take the form of utilitarianism.

The mere addition paradox is a problem in ethics identified by Derek Parfit and discussed in his book Reasons and Persons (1984). The paradox identifies the mutual incompatibility of four intuitively compelling assertions about the relative value of populations. Parfit’s original formulation of the repugnant conclusion is that "For any perfectly equal population with very high positive welfare, there is a population with very low positive welfare which is better, other things being equal."

The fact–value distinction is a fundamental epistemological distinction described between:

  1. Statements of fact, which are based upon reason and observation, and examined via the empirical method.
  2. Statements of value, which encompass ethics and aesthetics, and are studied via axiology.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy and economics</span> Branch of philosophy

Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly idealized economic models, the ontology of economic phenomena and the possibilities of acquiring knowledge of them.

Elliott R. Sober is an American philosopher. He is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Boetius de Dacia, OP was a 13th-century Danish philosopher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torbjörn Tännsjö</span> Swedish philosopher

Ulf Torbjörn Harald Tännsjö is a Swedish professor of philosophy and public intellectual. He has held a chair in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University since 2002 and he is Affiliated Professor of Medical Ethics at Karolinska Institute. Tännsjö was associate professor of philosophy at Stockholm University from 1976 to 1993 and Research Fellow in Political Philosophy at the Swedish Research Council in the Humanities and Social Sciences between 1993 and 1995. Thereafter, he was a professor of Practical Philosophy at Göteborg University 1995–2001.

Average and total utilitarianism are variants of utilitarianism that seek to maximize the average or total amount of utility; following Henry Sidgwick's question, "Is it total or average happiness that we seek to make a maximum?". They are theories of population ethics, a philosophical field that deals with problems arising when our actions affect the number or identity of individuals born in the future.

Population ethics is the philosophical study of the ethical problems arising when our actions affect who is born and how many people are born in the future. An important area within population ethics is population axiology, which is "the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live."

Prioritarianism, or the priority view, is a perspective within ethics and political philosophy stating that "social welfare orderings should give explicit priority to the worse off". Prioritarianism resembles utilitarianism, and is likewise a form of aggregative consequentialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth S. Anderson</span> American philosopher (born 1959)

Elizabeth Secor Anderson is an American philosopher. She is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan and specializes in political philosophy, ethics, and feminist philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Huemer</span> American philosopher (born 1969)

Michael Huemer is an American professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has defended ethical intuitionism, direct realism, metaphysical libertarianism, phenomenal conservatism, substance dualism, reincarnation, the repugnant conclusion, and philosophical anarchism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logic</span> Study of correct reasoning

Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. Informal logic examines arguments expressed in natural language whereas formal logic uses formal language. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a specific logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Logic plays a central role in many fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics.

Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the total amount of happiness. It can be considered as a version of utilitarianism that gives greater priority to reducing suffering than to increasing pleasure. This differs from classical utilitarianism, which does not claim that reducing suffering is intrinsically more important than increasing happiness. Both versions of utilitarianism hold that morally right and morally wrong actions depend solely on the consequences for overall aggregate well-being. "Well-being" refers to the state of the individual.

A person-affecting or person-based view in population ethics captures the intuition that an act can only be bad if it is bad for someone. Similarly something can be good only if it is good for someone. Therefore, according to standard person-affecting views, there is no moral obligation to create people nor moral good in creating people because nonexistence means "there is never a person who could have benefited from being created". Whether one accepts person-affecting views greatly influences to what extent shaping the far future is important if there are more potential humans in the future. Person-affecting views are also important in considering human population control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of ecology</span> Branch of philosophy

Philosophy of ecology is a concept under the philosophy of science, which is a subfield of philosophy. Its main concerns centre on the practice and application of ecology, its moral issues, and the intersectionality between the position of humans and other entities. This topic also overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, as it attempts to answer metaphysical, epistemic and moral issues surrounding environmental ethics and public policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute for Futures Studies</span> Swedish research institute

The Institute for Futures Studies is a Swedish research institute founded in 1973 as a Swedish government secretariat, and made independent in 1987. The institute conducts policy-relevant, inter-disciplinary research on critical future-related issues and contributes to the public policy discourse through its seminars and publications.

References

  1. "SCAS: Gustaf Arrhenius". www.swedishcollegium.se. Retrieved 2023-09-29.
  2. Roberts, M. A. (2022), "The Nonidentity Problem", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-09-29
  3. Thornley, Elliott (2021-11-01). "The impossibility of a satisfactory population prospect axiology (independently of Finite Fine-Grainedness)". Philosophical Studies. 178 (11): 3671–3695. doi: 10.1007/s11098-021-01621-4 . ISSN   1573-0883.
  4. Thornley, Elliott (May 12, 2021). "The Impossibility of a Satisfactory Population Prospect Axiology". Effective Altruism Forum. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  5. González-Ricoy, Iñigo; Gosseries, Axel (2016). Institutions For Future Generations. Oxford University Press.
  6. Blackorby, Charles; Bossert, Walter; Donaldson, David (2005). Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics. Cambridge university press.
  7. "Population Ethics - Bibliography - PhilPapers". philpapers.org. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  8. Greaves, Hilary (7 November 2017). "Population axiology". Philosophy Compass. 12 (11). doi:10.1111/phc3.12442.
  9. Franz, Nathan; Spears, Dean (November 2020). "Mere Addition is equivalent to avoiding the Sadistic Conclusion in all plausible variable-population social orderings". Economics Letters. 196. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109547. PMC   7526863 . PMID   33012905.
  10. Cato, Susumu; Harada, Ko (November 2023). "A new result on the impossibility of avoiding both the repugnant and sadistic conclusions". Economics Letters. 232. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111306. S2CID   260856111.
  11. Asheim, Geir B.; Zuber, Stéphane (3 October 2014). "Escaping the repugnant conclusion: Rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population". Theoretical Economics. 9 (3): 629–650. doi:10.3982/TE1338. hdl: 10852/41508 . S2CID   9505504.
  12. "Gustaf Arrhenius appointed as new director of the Institute for Futures Studies - Sveriges Unga Akademi". www.sverigesungaakademi.se. 2014-09-09. Archived from the original on 2024-01-18. Retrieved 2024-01-18.