After over five years of writing, revising, and occasionally doubting, my article “The Hard Proxy Problem: proxies aren’t intentional; they’re intentional” has been published at Philosophical Studies. It offers a new view on how proxies function in decision-making—human and machine alike.
I also received our college’s Huntoon Award for Superior Teaching. I'm incredibly grateful to the students who nominated me, and I am thrilled to both be the Faculty Marshall at commencement today and to hand them their degrees.
I was also honored to receive an NEH Fellowship. Though it was later terminated by the Trump administration (involuntarily donated to Trump’s own birthday parade, I assume), I remain thankful to those who saw value in my work and supported it.
First, after over five years of writing, revising, and occasionally doubting, my article “The Hard Proxy Problem: proxies aren’t intentional; they’re intentional” has been published at Philosophical Studies. It offers a new view on how proxies function in decision-making—human and machine alike.
To summarize: This is a comment OMB gave alongside the new regulations to make perfectly clear that the possible bases listed in the federal regulations MUST be written into the terms and conditions of a grant if they are to be legitimate grounds for termination. They are not automatically available
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...
and pass-through entities to clearly and unambiguously communicate termination conditions in the terms and conditions of the award.” OMB Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance, 89 Fed. Reg. 30,046, 30,089-90 (Apr. 22, 2024) (to be codified at 2 C.F.R. pts. 1, 25, 170, 175, 180, 182, 183, 184, 200
termination provisions in the terms and conditions of the award. As such, OMB finds the final version of the guidance provides greater clarity on the policy for termination of awards by the Federal agency or pass-through entity by underscoring the need for agencies ...
the circumstances described in paragraph (a)(2) in the prior version of the guidance. The prior version of section 200.340(b) and the proposed version both directed Federal agencies and pass-through entities to clearly and unambiguously specify all ...
... Provided that the language is included in the terms and condition of the award, the revised termination provision at section 200.340 continues to allow Federal agencies and pass-through entities with authority to terminate an award in ...
... The revised version of paragraph (a)(4) also explains that this may include a term and condition allowing termination by the Federal agency or pass-through entity, to the extent authorized by law, if an award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. ...
“OMB revised paragraph (a)(4) in section 200.340 in the final guidance. The new paragraph (a)(4) continues to provide that a Federal award may be terminated by the Federal agency or pass-through entity pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Federal award. ...
I'm writing an appeal for an individual NEH grant termination and likewise used the argument that the termination is inconsistent with the governing terms and conditions. To bolster this argument, I appealed to The Office of Management and Budget’s ("OMB") Response to Comments in 2024. Quoted below:
Looking for an accessible survey of how philosophers are pushing our concept of bias (including implicit bias, explicit bias, algorithmic bias, and inductive bias) forward? Check out this new Phil Compass article: philpapers.org/rec/JOHVOB
Great teaching resource for students too!