Ittay Nissan-Rozen                                     

ittay.nissan@mail.huji.ac.il

Appointments

2023-: Professor at the Hebrew University (PPE, Philosophy)

2019-2023: Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University (PPE, Philosophy)

2012-2019: Lecturer at the Hebrew University (PPE, Philosophy)                                                     

2011 – 2012: Postdoctoral fellow, The Edelstein Centre for the philosophy and history of science, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Visiting Positions

2019-2020: Visiting Scholar, the Department of Philosophy in the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Education

2007 – 2011: PhD, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Methods, the London School of Economics. Thesis’ title: “Doing the best one can, (while trying to do better)”. Supervisors: Richard Bradley and Alex Voorhoeve. Examiners: Ralph Wedgwood and Krister Bykvist.  

2004–2007: M.A. in the "History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science" program and the Center for Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

2001-2003: B.A in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Areas of Specialization

Decision Theory, Philosophy of Economics, Formal Ethics, Philosophy of Social Science

Areas of Competence

General Philosophy of Science, Formal Epistemology, Political Philosophy

Publications

  • "Wanting to Know Whether", Analysis (forthcoming).
  • "Triangulation, incommensurability and Conditionaliztion", Philosophy of Science (forthcoming), Joint work with Amir Liron. 
  • "Empirical Evidence for Moral Bayesianism", Philosophical Psychology (2022), Joint work (equal contribution)  with Haim Cohen and Anat Maril.
  • “Attitudes Toward Risk are Complicated: experimental evidence for the re-individuation approach to risk-attitudes”, Philosophical Studies, (2022), Joint work (last author) with Haim Cohen, Anat Maril and Sun Bleicher.
  • “Libertarian Paternalism and Susan Hurley’s political philosophy”, Inquiry: An interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, (2021).
  • “Weighing and aggregating reasons under uncertainty: a trilemma”, Philosophical Studies (2020).
  • "The Intrinsic Value of Risky Prospects", Synthese, (2020), Joint work with Ze'ev Goldschdmidt .
  • "A puzzle about experts, evidential screening-off and conditionalization", Episteme (2020). 
  • “The value of chance and the satisfaction of claims”, The Journal of Philosophy (2019).
  • ”Nudging in the Clinic: The Ethical Implications of Differences in Doctors’ and Patients’ Point of View”, Journal of Medical Ethics (2019); Joint work (last author) with David Avitzur, Eliana Avitzur, Rani Barnea and Haim Cohen.
  • "A Pragmatic Argument Against Equal Weighting", Synthese (2019); Joint work with Levi Spectre.
  • "On the Inadmissibility of some Historical Information", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2018).
  • "Is Value Under Hypothesis Value?", Ergo (2018).
  • "How to be an Ex-Post Egalitarian and an Ex-Ante Paretian", Analysis (2017). 
  • "Newcomb meets Gettier", Synthese (2017).
  • "Reasoning with Comparative Moral Judgements: An Argument for Moral Bayesianism", in Application of Formal Philosophy: the Road Less Travelled, edited by Rafal Urbaniak and Gillman Payette, published in Springer's series Logic, Argumentation and Reasoning (2017).
  • “A triviality result for the ‘desire by necessity’ thesis”, Synthese, (2015).
  • "Against Moral Hedging", Economics and Philosophy, (2015)
  • “The Principal Principle, Adams’ Thesis, the Desire as Belief Thesis and Jeffrey’s conditionalization”, British Journal for the philosophy of Science (2013). 
  • “Doing the best one can: a new justification for the use of lotteries”, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics (2012). This paper is the winner of the 2012 Mark Blaug Prize in Philosophy and Economics. 

Book Reviews, Discussion papers and Other Publications

  • Book  Review on "Rational responses to risk" by Paul Weirich, Economics and Philosophy (2022).
  • Book Review on "The limits of Kindness" by Casper Hare, Economics and Philosophy (2015).
  • “Can an irrational agent reason himself to rationality? A triviality result”, LSE Choice Group Working Paper Series, 6 (8).
  • “Discourse and silencing discourse in ‘Adam Resurrected’”; Keshet Haadasha”, 11, 2005. (in Hebrew).

Open University Learning Guide Project

“Rationality, Interpretation, Causality: Issues in the Philosophy of Social Science”, together with Yuval Eylon and Gadi Purdovsky, Approved for development by the Open University, Israel.    

Grants, Scholarships and Prizes  

2023 - 2027: Israel Science Foundation research grant. Topic: Risk attitudes when choosing for others. 720,000 NIS.

2019-2020: Offered a faculty fellowship at the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. Declined.

2018-2021:  Israel Science Foundation research grant. Topic: The dynamic of attitudes to risk. 180,000 NIS.

2013-2016: Israeli Science Foundation research grant. Topic: A Bayesian approach to moral reasoning. 150,000 NIS.

2012: Mark Blaug Prize in Philosophy and Economics.

2010-2011: Jacobsen Fellowship, the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Teaching Awards

Mentioned in the List of Excellent Teachers at the Hebrew University in the years: 2013-14, 2015-16, 2016-2017, 2017-2018

Graduate Students’ Supervision

Lior Nissim-Grinman (PhD, Philosophy)

Amir Ganor (PhD, Archeology together with Yosef Garfinkel)

Amiya Heskes (MA, Philosophy)

Amitai Edri (MA, Philosophy)

Omer Yeroushalmi (MA, Philosophy)

Amit Pinsker (MA, Philosophy)

Ayala Hadad (MA, Philosophy)

Neta Bar-Ziv (Ma, Philosophy)

Merav Kaplan (MA, Public Policy, together with Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan)

Jonathan Fiat (MA, Philosophy, together with Arnon Levy) 

Zeev Goldschmidt (MA, Philosophy together with David Enoch)

Efrat Shamir (MA, Philosophy, History and Sociology of Science)

Jonathan Barzilai (MA, Philosophy)

Haim Cohen (MA, Cognitive Science, together with Anat Maril).

Professional Service

Since 2021: Head of the PPE (Philosophy, Political Science and Economics) program at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Since 2021: S.H. Bergman Center for Philosophical Studies, Academic Director.

Since 2018: Editor of the “Updating Principles” category in Philpapers.

2019: Conference Organizer (with Arnon Levy): “Workshop on experimental methods in philosophy”, The Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, June 2019.

2019: Advisor for the learning guide for the Open University course “Introduction to Epistemology”.

2014-2019: Member of the academic committee of the Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew University.

2019-2020: B.A. Advisor, The Philosophy Department at the Hebrew University.

2013-2019: B.A. Advisor, the PPE program at the Hebrew University.

2018: Conference Organizer: “Ethics and Uncertainty”, the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy annual conference. June 2018.  

2018: Conference organizer: “Workshop on formal representations of attitudes to risk”, the Edelstein Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science. March 2018.

2017-8: Coordinator of the annual project ("Ethics and Uncertainty") of the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy (CMPP) in the Hebrew University.

2016: Advisor for the learning guide for the Open University course “Paradoxes”.

2015: Conference Organizer: "The Nathan Stemmer Colloquium on the Philosophy of the Science of Morality", Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 2015.

2014 – 2015:  Member of Program Committee: "Formal Ethics" conference (I was a member of the committee for the conference that took place in Bayreuth, July 3-5, 2015 and the conference that took place in Rotterdam in May 30-31, 2014).

Since 2012: Occasional Referee for: The Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Nous, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Australiasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Synthese, Erkenntnis, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Economics and Philosophy, Ergo, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Psychology, Utilitas, Inquiry, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Earsmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, Res Philosophica, Theoria, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Iyyun, SSHRC.  

Selected Presentations

  • “Why should we be Risk-Avoidant in Climate Policy Decisions?” The 13th GISFOH (German-Israeli Frontiers of Humanities Symposium), 6-9 November 2022, Jerusalem.  
  • “Triangulation, Incommensurability and Conditionalization”, with Amir Liron,
    1. Workshop on Mixed Methods Research and Causal Inference, University of Kent, Canterbury, May 2022.
    2. The Annual Conference of the Israeli History and Philosophy of Science Association, Tel Aviv, June 2022.
    3. The British Society for the Philosophy of Science’s annual conference, Exeter, UK, July 2022. 
  • “A Contractualist Approach to Threshold Deontology: The Case of Ex-Post Regulatory Changes”, with Noam Nisan and Udi Nisan,
    1. The Annual retreat of The Federmann Center for The Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University, Ashkelon, July 2021.
    2. The Departmental Seminar of the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, October 2021.
    3. Algorithmic Game Theory: Past, Present and Future, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, June 2022.
  • “Attitudes to risk are complicated”,
    1. Cork-Trinity Philosophy departmental seminar, held on Zoom, November 2020.
    2. Haifa University Economics departmental seminar, May 2022.
  • "Weighing and aggregating reasons under  
    1. Center for Values and Social Policies, University of Colorado, Boulder, November 2019.
    2. Zicklin Center Normative Business Ethics Workshop, Philadelphia, February 2020.
  • Attitudes to risk when choosing for others”,
    1. Formal Value Theory Workshop, held on Zoom, December 2020 (joint work with Jonathan Fiat).
    2. Haifa University Philosophy Departmental Seminar, December 2022.
  • Attitudes to risk when choosing for others”, Formal Value Theory Workshop, held on Zoom, December 2020 (joint work with Jonathan Fiat).
  • “Is the mere fact that an act is more likely to be better than another a reason to prefer it?”, Moral Decisions, Hamburg, June 2018.
  • “Do Moral Judgments Express a Cognitive State or a Conative State?”, A talk given in the Departmental Seminar at the Tel Hai Academic College, December 2017, ((joint work with Haim Cohen and Anat Maril, paper presented by myself).
  • "The value of chance and the satisfaction of claims", Formal Ethics 2017, York, June 2017.
  • "A pragmatic argument against equal weighing", Haifa workshop on rational belief and normative commitments, Haifa, April 2017 (joint work with Levi Spectre, paper presented by myself).
  • "Conditional vs. Unconditional attitudes to risk", EIPE 20th anniversary conference, Roterdam, March 2017 (joint work with Zeev Goldchmidt, paper presented by myself).
  • "How to be an Ex-Post Egalitarian and an Ex-Ante Paretian", 3rd International Conference Economic Philosophy, Ain-an-Provence, June 2016.
  • "The Ramsey Test, the Principal Principle and Admissible Propositions", Probabilities in Science and Philosophy (The First Jerusalem-MCMP Workshop in the Philosophy of Science), Jerusalem, May 2016.
  • "Contrastive Explanations, Crystal Balls and the Inadmissibility of Historical Information", PSA, Chicago, November 2014.
  • "Does the 'new social science’ has political implications? Nudge as a study-case", New Israeli Philosophical Association Annual Conference, Ramat-Gan, February 2013.
  • “Against moral hedging”, Law and Philosophy Workshop at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, April 2013.
  • “Moral Uncertainty and normative requirements of indifference”, Formal Ethics 2012, Munich, October, 2012.
  •  “Moral Bayesianism”, The department of philosophy in the Hebrew university’s Departmental seminar, Jerusalem December 2011.
  • “The Principal Principle, Adams’ Thesis, the Desire as Belief Thesis and Jeffrey’s conditionalization”, New Israeli Philosophical Association, Annual Conference, Jerusalem, February 2011.
  •  “Can an irrational agent reason himself to rationality? A triviality result”; The Choice Group Seminar, CPENSS, LSE, London, February 2010.
  • “Transitivity and degrees of firmness of moral judgments”; LSE-Groningen Exchange Workshop Part II, Groningen, September, 2009.
  • “Economic models as reference fixing devices”; The Israeli Association for Philosophy and History of Science, Annual Conference, Jerusalem April 2009.
  • “Objective Probability in Decision Theory: The Case of the Absent-Minded Driver Paradox”; Decisions, Games and Logic 08, Amsterdam, July, 2008.