Testimonianze esperte e probabilit\ue0 delle ipotesi

Nella pratica clinica e in quella giudiziaria un importante ruolo viene svolto dalle cosiddette testimonianze esperte, cio\ue8 dalle testimonianze degli esperti interpellati da medici e giudici nelle diverse fasi del processo diagnostico e di quello penale. Nella prima parte di questo articolo, introdurremo alcune nozioni fondamentali dell=approccio bayesiano all=epistemologia della testimonianza. Nella seconda parte, mostreremo che tale approccio pu\uf2 far luce sul modo in cui le testimonianze esperte dovrebbero governare la valutazione probabilistica delle ipotesi diagnostiche considerate dai medici e delle ipotesi ricostruttive prospettate nel processo penale

Evolutionary models of the social contract

In a recent book on The Evolution of Social Contract, Brian Skyrms shows how evolutionary game theory can be used to explain how the implicit social contract we live by might have evolved. In this paper, after describing the main lines of Skyrms’s approach, we will examine some problems arising from it, on the basis of a comparison with von Hayek’s evolutionary view. Finally, we will make some remarks on the possible relevance of the outcomes achieved by Skyrms for the studies on the ‘bounded rationality’

Giochi di misericordia tra terra e cielo

Il sentimento di misericordia tenda a produrre quelle azioni che, nella tradizione cattolica, vanno sotto il nome di opere di misericordia. Poich\ue9 tali opere richiedono spesso l\u2019impegno coordinato di molti individui, a partire dal tardo Medioevo si cominci\uf2 a usare \u201cmisericordia\u201d come una denominazione generica delle confraternite organizzate per assistere gli ammalati e seppellire i morti. Le definizioni appena formulate associano la misericordia alla compassione, alla piet\ue0 e al perdono. Inoltre, le nostre tendenze misericordiose appaiono in stretta relazione con la carit\ue0, l\u2019empatia, la benevolenza, la cooperazione e l\u2019altruismo. Nelle pagine che seguono suggeriamo che la misericordia \ue8 radicata nella terra e protesa al cielo, nel senso che l\u2019albero della misericordia affonda le radici nel terreno dell\u2019evoluzione biologica dell\u2019uomo e proietta i suoi rami verso il cielo, cio\ue8 verso Dio

Giochi dei beni pubblici: il problema dei beni pubblici nella prospettiva della teoria dei giochi

The provision of public goods is an important problem in economics and the social sciences. It is often claimed that this problem has the structure of the well-known Prisoner’s Dilemma so that rational and self-interested individuals would not be able to provide any public good by spontaneous cooperation. In this paper, we argue that this pessimistic view of the possibility spontaneous cooperation is largely unjustified, since the game theoretic analysis of public goods shows how their voluntary provision is indeed feasible in a number of circumstances. We conclude by considering the implications of the game theoretic approach to the problem of public goods for political philosophy and, in particular, for the possibility of "ordered anarchy" as defended in the works of Anthony de Jasay

Unfolding the Grammar of Bayesian Confirmation: Likelihood and Antilikelihood Principles

We explore the grammar of Bayesian confirmation by focusing on some likelihood principles, including the Weak Law of Likelihood.We show that none of the likelihood principles proposed so far is satisfied by all incremental measures of confirmation, and we argue that some of these measures indeed obey new, prima facie strange, antilikelihood principles. To prove this, we introduce a new measure that violates the Weak Law of Likelihood while satisfying a strong antilikelihood condition. We conclude by hinting at some relevant links between the likelihood principles considered here and other properties of Bayesian confirmation recently explored in the literature

Teoria dei giochi ed evoluzione delle norme morali

Mathematical game theory – developed starting from the publication of The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944), by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern – aims to outline an ideal model of behaviour of rational agents involved in some interaction with other rational agents. For this reason, game theory has immediately attracted the attention of philosophers dealing with practical rationality and, since the fifties, has been applied to the analysis of several issues concerning ethics and philosophy of politics. Here we will focus on one of the most interesting applications of game theory to ethical-political inquiry, i.e., with the game theoretic analysis of some problems related to the evolution of moral norms. Firstly, we will provide a short outline of the development of game theory, which has lead to the formulation of a plurality of different game theories. It will be shown that such theories can be classified in two main groups: rationalistic game theories –in two different versions: classical and epistemic – and evolutionary game theories. Moreover, some basic elements of classical game theory will be introduced and the key ideas of epistemic and evolutionary game theories will be illustrated. Afterwards, the main approaches developed within the ethical-political applications of game theory will be shortly described. Finally, some results obtained in the last twenty years by the researchers who have analysed the evolution of moral norms by the conceptual tools of evolutionary and epistemic game theories, will be examined