One of the principles on how to act under moral uncertainty, My Favourite Theory, says roughly that a morally conscientious agent chooses an option that is permitted by the most credible moral theory. In defence of this principle, we argue that it prescribes consistent choices over time, without relying on intertheoretic comparisons of value, while its main rivals are either plagued by moral analogues of money pumps or in need of a method for making non‐arbitrary intertheoretic comparisons. We rebut the arguments that have been levelled against My Favourite Theory and offer some arguments against intertheoretic comparisons of value.
Critical-Range Utilitarianism is a variant of Total Utilitarianism which can avoid both the Repugnant Conclusion and the Sadistic Conclusion in population ethics. Yet Standard Critical-Range Utilitarianism entails the Weak Sadistic Conclusion, that is, it entails that each population consisting of lives at a bad well-being level is not worse than some population consisting of lives at a good well-being level. In this paper, I defend a version of Critical-Range Utilitarianism which does not entail the Weak Sadistic Conclusion. This is made possible by what I call ‘undistinguishedness’, a fourth category of absolute value in addition to goodness, badness, and neutrality.
Received Month X, XXXX; revised Month X, XXXX; accepted Month X, XXXX; posted Month X, XXXX (Doc. ID XXXXX); published Month X, XXXX Optical properties of natural photonic structures can inspire material developments in diversified areas, where spectral design of surfaces for camouflage is one. Here, reflectance, scattering and polarization properties of the cuticle of the scarab beetle Cyphochilus insulanus are studied with Spectral Directional Hemispherical Reflectance (SDHR), Bidirectional Reflection Distribution Function (BRDF) measurements and Mueller-Matrix Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (MMSE). At normal incidence a reflectance (0.6 -0.75) is found in the spectral range 400 -1600 nm and a weaker reflectance < 0.2 in the UV range as well as for wavelengths >1600 nm. A whiteness of W = 42 is observed for mainly the elytra of the beetle. Chitin is a major constituent of the insect cuticle which is verified by the close similarity of the measured IR spectrum to that of -chitin. The BRDF signal shows close to Lambertian properties of the beetle for visible light at small angles of incidence. From the MMSE measurement it is found that the beetles appear as dielectric reflectors reflecting linearly polarized light at oblique incidence with low gloss and low degree of polarization. The measured beetle properties are properties that can be beneficial in a camouflage material.
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