University of Pennsylvania

Post-Doc, Philosophy, Politics, & Economics (PPE)

Thesis Title: Diversity and the Social Contract

About

I am a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics department at the University of Pennsylvania.  My previous postdoc was in the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario.  Previous to that, I was a graduate student in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where I worked with Cristina Bicchieri on my doctoral thesis, "Diversity and the Social Contract."  I received my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

My dissertation project, "Diversity and the Social Contract", was an attempt to lay the foundations for a novel formulation of social contract theory in which diversity is a central concern. To do this, I offered a new moral stance that allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement, and then used this moral stance to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate with only minimal conditions on their agreement. I demonstrated that, up to certain limits, a more diverse population is one that is more able to provide public goods. This framework was then used to argue that we ought to replace a notion of toleration with a more aggressive embrace of diversity. I see this project as an attempt to bring Mill's conception of experiments in living into the fold of contract theory.

In addition to further expanding my dissertation project, I have two parallel research interests involving developing a more robust understanding of social norms. I am completing theoretical work that utilizes agent-based models and evolutionary game theory to investigate the interaction of multiple norms in a given population. In particular, I have focused on norms of distributional fairness, and have found that conflicting norms can be mutually reinforcing, contrary to intuitive expectations. Not only does this provide some explanatory power for understanding how societies maintain multiple conflicting norms, but it provides a framework for normative work on institutional design in liberal societies.

The second research interest is experimental in nature. Relying on Cristina Bicchieri's account of social norms, I have collaborated with Bicchieri and Xiao on the normative status of trust. Though it is often assumed that there is a norm of trust, we have found that people act as if there is only a norm of reciprocating trust. Though empirical work does not always connect well with philosophical investigation, this is an area in which there is an opportunity for theoretical work and empirical work to inform each other.

My main research project in the philosophy of science has been an examination of the division of cognitive labor. This project has been a collaboration with Michael Weisberg. It was spawned by an interest in Kitcher's and Strevens' work on the division of cognitive labor, and as such, the project has two components. The first component has been a careful analysis of the idealizing assumptions made in the models utilized by Kitcher and Strevens. As the conclusion to this work has been that the idealizations limit the scope of the models themselves, the second part of the project has been to develop an alternative model. We have developed a base model, which introduces a concept of epistemic landscapes on which scientist-agents seek to climb the "hills" of epistemic value utilizing different search strategies. This model has proved to be a fruitful basis for future research, and we have now begun the process of investigating extensions to the model.

As much of my work has involved developing and using mathematical models and computer simulations, I have become interested in the epistemic foundations and justifications for models. My first project in this area was to draw from the robustness literature to provide a systematic justification for the use of computer simulations in scientific practice. My next project in this area is interested in understanding how multiple models of the same target phenomenon can be considered to be modeling the same thing. The robustness literature takes this for granted, but there has not been any philosophical understanding of how these models can be directed at the same target, given their structural differences.

My interest in epistemology has stemmed from where I perceive to be the epistemological frontiers and limits in my main research projects. In particular, I am interested in social epistemology, distributed inquiry and social knowledge aggregation. In these and similar areas, I am most drawn to issues that Hempel would classify as the "context of discovery" - namely, I am interested in searching for optimal institutions and procedures for maximizing knowledge production. I also have an interest in the intersection of psychology and philosophy. In particlar, the project of understanding our cognitive limits and biases, and incorporating these insights into developing more reliable methods of reasoning.

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