Main Publications (Peer-Reviewed)
Making a Murderer: How risk assessment tools may produce rather than predict criminal behavior, (with Donal Khosrowi) American Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming
In a sentence: Risk assessment tools like COMPAS may reinforce propensities to criminal behavior, which poses novel challenges for the development of these tools.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/apqcover-1.jpg)
Austinian Model Evaluation, Philosophy of Science, 90(5):1459-1468, 2023
In a sentence: Like Austin’s “performatives”, some models are used not merely to represent, but also to change their targets in various ways; I argue that these models can be evaluated with respect to their “felicity”, i.e. whether their use has achieved this purpose.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PSA-683x1024-1.jpg)
Markets, Market Algorithms, and Algorithmic Bias, Journal of Economic Methodology, 30(4):310-321, 2023
In a sentence: Where economists previously viewed the market as arising “spontaneously”, they now increasingly design market algorithms to achieve specific purposes; I trace this development and consider its consequences for the ethics of markets.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/JEM.png)
When Is Lockdown Justified?, (with Lucie White and Mathias Frisch) Philosophy of Medicine 3(1):1-22, 2022
In a sentence: Early evidence justified the imposition of lockdowns in high-income countries.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PhilMed.png)
Rationality in games and institutions, Synthese 199:12295-12314, 2021
In a sentence: If you believe that rational agents may cooperate in a Prisoners‘ Dilemma, you should be prepared to design the institutions through which we interact accordingly, but I am not optimistic that the result will be desirable.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Synthese-1-672x1024.png)
The Epistemic Duties of Philosophers: An Addendum, (with Lucie White) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 31(4):447-451, 2021
In a sentence: We were slightly concerned, upon having read Winsberg et al.’s reply to our paper “Were Lockdowns Justified? A Return to the Facts and Evidence”, that they may have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of our argument, so we issue the following clarification, along with a comment on our motivations for writing such a piece, for the interested reader.
![Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist KIEJ-1.jpg](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/KIEJ-1.jpg)
Were Lockdowns Justified? A Return to the Facts and Evidence, (with Lucie White) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 31(4):405-428, 2021
In a sentence: When evaluating lockdown policies, the evidential basis upon which governments imposed them should properly be taken into account; unfortunately, philosophers of science have so far failed in this task.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/KIEJ-1.jpg)
Without a trace: Why did corona apps fail?, (with Lucie White) Journal of Medical Ethics 47:e83, 2021
In a sentence: Effective contact tracing in a pandemic requires centralised storage of data, which is justifiable as it may minimise ethical risks, all things considered.
![JME](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/JME.gif)
Three Ways in Which Pandemic Models May Perform a Pandemic, (with Lucie White, Donal Khosrowi, and Mathias Frisch) Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 14(1):110-127, 2021
In a sentence: Epidemiological models may not only forecast, but also influence the course of an epidemic in important ways, and this is what we have seen in the COVID-19 pandemic.
![Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist EJPE.jpg](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EJPE.jpg)
Privacy versus Public Health? A Reassessment of Centralised and Decentralised Digital Contact Tracing, (with Lucie White) Science and Engineering Ethics 27(2):1-13, 2021
In a sentence: We should analyse the overall ethical risks of data technologies, but debates about digital contact tracing have tended to one-sidedly focus on privacy, which has led to largely ineffective designs.
How to Build an Institution, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51(2):215-238, 2021
In a sentence: Successful institutional design requires a designer, an engineer and a plumber.
![Philosophy of the social sciences](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/POSS.png)
How to Overcome Lockdown: Selective Isolation vs. Contact Tracing, (with Lucie White) Journal of Medical Ethics 46(11):724-725, 2020
In a sentence: We should not lock down the elderly or other vulnerable groups in a pandemic, but rather put vigorous contact tracing measures on the agenda.
![JME](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/JME.gif)
Kidney Exchange and the Ethics of Giving, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 18(1):85-110, 2020
In a sentence: Kidney exchange is ethically justifiable and should not be prohibited.
![JESP](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/JESP.jpg)
Comment on The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions, (with Eric Brandstedt), Environmental Research Letters 13, 048001, 2018
In a sentence: Having children increases your carbon footprint, but not by as much as many scientists have assumed because they have engaged in methodologically flawed multiple-counting of emissions.
Subject of a response by Seth Wynes and Kimberly Nicholas: Reply to Comment on The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions, Environmental Research Letters 13, 048002, 2018.
Coverage: The Guardian, Spektrum.de (German), BBC
![Environmental research letters](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ERL.jpg)
Towards a Fair Distribution Mechanism for Asylum, Games 8, 41, 2017
In a sentence: Matching systems show promise for making the distribution of refugees fairer and more efficient, but the devil is in the details.
![Games](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/games.jpg)
Dawid, Hartmann, Sprenger on the No Alternatives Argument: an empiricist note, Kriterion 29(1), 35-47, 2015
In a sentence: Dawid, Hartmann and Sprenger defend the possibility of non-empirical theory confirmation via the “No Alternatives Argument”, but their defence begs the question.
![](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Kriterion-691x1024.jpg)
Book Reviews
![Review of political economy](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/RPE.jpg)
Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society (by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl), Review of Political Economy 31(1), 137-141, 2019
![Economics & Philosophy](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/EP.jpg)
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (M. Peterson, ed.), Economics and Philosophy 33(1), 153-160, 2017
![History of economic thought](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/European_Journal_Hist_Econ_Thought.jpg)
The World the Game Theorists Made (by Paul Erickson), The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 24(2), 403-406, 2017
Other Languages
On the ethics of corona apps, (with Lucie White) Ethik in der Medizin 33, 387–400, 2021 (in German)
![EIM](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/EIM.jpg)
On the Ethics of Kidney Exchange, DIATRA 2-2020:35-37, 2020 (in German)
![Diatra](https://philippevanbasshuysen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Diatra.jpg)