Philosophical Studies Abstract In her ground-breaking and highly influential book Transformative Experience, L.A. Paul makes two claims: (1) one cannot evaluate and compare certain experiential outcomes  evaluate and compare certain intuitively horrible outcomes (e.g. being eaten alive by sharks) as bad and worse than certain other outcomes even if one cannot grasp what these intuitively horrible outcomes are like. We argue that the conjunction of these two claims leads to an implausible discontinuity in the evaluability of outcomes. One implication of positing such a discontinuity is that evaluative comparisons of outcomes will not be proportionally sensitive to variation in the underlying features of these outcomes. This puts pressure on Paul to abandon either (1) or (2). But (1) is central to her view and (2) is very hard to deny. We call this the Shark Problem.

Implicit Mind: Belief, Alief and Experience with Kathrin Glüer

Recording from the Implicit Mind Workshop at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, May 2015.

AbstractThe death of a child affects the well-being of parents and families worldwide but very little is known about the scale of this phenomenon. We provide the first global overview of parental bere

Rivista Internazionale di Filosfia e Psicologia Abstract This paper focuses on cases of epistemically transformative experiences, as Paul calls them, cases where we have radically different experiences t

Social Science Research 95 Abstract The US has experienced a substantial decline in social trust in recent decades. Surprisingly few studies analyze whether individual-level explanations can account for

Place: The Institute for Futures Studies, Holländargatan 13, StockholmRegister hereInformality is on the rise. From remote labour and services-on-demand to food trucks and pop-up shops, its transformat

If a social scientific observer of the mid-1980s had been presented with a line-up of rich Western countries – say Germany, Sweden, the UK, France, the US – and asked to guess which  of these countrie

Economics and Philosophy, 33(1), 2017: 125-138. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267116000274 Abstract Most people at some point in their lives face transformative decisions that could result in experi

European Journal of Criminology Abstract Building and expanding on contemporary research where desistance is increasingly conceived of asa fragile and liminal experience, this paper examines the early dof ambivalence – an undertheorised concept in life course criminology. This paper employs qualitativeinterviews from a total of 10 participants who participated in SIG, a voluntary defector programmein Sweden. Despite having formulated a clear resolve to desist, the participantsnonetheless experienced feelings of ambivalence in relation to the desistance process. In theseinstances, the aspiring desisters were bordering between the prospects of a better, crime-freelife and the pains, losses, struggles and frustrations accompanying the early stages of desistance.It is argued that this liminal position, where the old life is to be discarded and a new, better lifeis yet to be built, may constitute a breeding ground for ambivalence – a state which needs tobe grounded in the precarious social position of marginalised youth which aspiring desisters typicallyoccupy.

What happens in a nightclub that only exists in a virtual reality? What happens to interaction and intimacy in a world where physical contact is not possible?