Reasons and Rationality. The project explains how we assess the truth and falsehood of everyday claims about what people have reason to do. It also explains what legitimizes our practice of praising and blaming people for their success and failure at doing what we think they have reason to do. In so doing it provides a foundation for both our ordinary practice of holding people responsible, and for the more institutionalised counterpart of this ordinary practice in the law.
Practicalism: Knowing and Agency. Australian philosophy has a deserved reputation for excellence, especially in topics of traditional centrality for analytic philosophers. But more still needs to be done within Australian epistemology. Most of the recent related work has occurred within the philosophies of mind, of language, and of science, and to some extent within ethics. That work needs to be complemented by good work in epistemology. I hope this project will help to achieve that, thereby inc ....Practicalism: Knowing and Agency. Australian philosophy has a deserved reputation for excellence, especially in topics of traditional centrality for analytic philosophers. But more still needs to be done within Australian epistemology. Most of the recent related work has occurred within the philosophies of mind, of language, and of science, and to some extent within ethics. That work needs to be complemented by good work in epistemology. I hope this project will help to achieve that, thereby increasing the national and international philosophical visibility of Australian epistemology.Read moreRead less
A narrative theory of ethics. The project aims to conduct a detailed investigation into a narrative approach to ethics. Narrative is an increasingly popular but relatively under-theorised concept. Taking as its basis work in narrative theory and ethics by Paul Ricoeur, the project aims to provide an innovative conceptual scheme which incorporates recent philosophical accounts of selfhood, emodiment, autonomy, action, and pluralistic conceptions of the good. The project will result in a major con ....A narrative theory of ethics. The project aims to conduct a detailed investigation into a narrative approach to ethics. Narrative is an increasingly popular but relatively under-theorised concept. Taking as its basis work in narrative theory and ethics by Paul Ricoeur, the project aims to provide an innovative conceptual scheme which incorporates recent philosophical accounts of selfhood, emodiment, autonomy, action, and pluralistic conceptions of the good. The project will result in a major contribution to scholarship in philosophy and ethics, as well as to the articulation of notions such as identity, subjectivity, trust, rights, obligation and accountability, across the social sciences.Read moreRead less
Autonomy and Identity: A Relational Theory. Autonomy is widely regarded as an important value in liberal democratic societies and underpins many of the basic rights and legal protections enjoyed by citizens. The principle of respect for autonomy is a guiding ethical principle in a range of areas, including in medical and legal contexts, for example in requirements regarding informed consent, and in ethical guidelines governing protocols for research involving human subjects. A better understandi ....Autonomy and Identity: A Relational Theory. Autonomy is widely regarded as an important value in liberal democratic societies and underpins many of the basic rights and legal protections enjoyed by citizens. The principle of respect for autonomy is a guiding ethical principle in a range of areas, including in medical and legal contexts, for example in requirements regarding informed consent, and in ethical guidelines governing protocols for research involving human subjects. A better understanding of autonomy and its relationship to the social context has the potential to produce indirect socio-economic benefits by informing theory and practice in these and other areas. Read moreRead less
Trust and Distrust in Social Epistemic Networks. This project aims to discover critically-needed understandings of the social causes and consequences of ‘fake news’. It will do this by investigating and mapping the relationship between ‘epistemic vices’ and people’s acceptance of misinformation and disinformation (e.g. conspiracy theories). It will bring together approaches from experimental philosophy, natural language processing, social network analysis, and normative reflection to provide new ....Trust and Distrust in Social Epistemic Networks. This project aims to discover critically-needed understandings of the social causes and consequences of ‘fake news’. It will do this by investigating and mapping the relationship between ‘epistemic vices’ and people’s acceptance of misinformation and disinformation (e.g. conspiracy theories). It will bring together approaches from experimental philosophy, natural language processing, social network analysis, and normative reflection to provide new insights regarding distrust and intellectual vice, thus significantly advancing knowledge of the ‘dark side’ of social epistemology. Results will lead to urgently required guidance regarding the features of social networks that exacerbate or buffer against the manifestation of these vices.Read moreRead less
The many moral rationalisms. This project addresses the foundations of morality. It contributes to our self-understanding by generating new insights into the objectivity of morality and into the role of reason and emotion in moral judgment.
The structure and function of self-representation. Recent psychology and neuroscience suggests that human beings are very bad at knowing themselves. This project changes that debate by arguing that our self-examination is not designed to increase self-knowledge, but to help us navigate the social world.
Point of view in personal memory: a philosophical study of perspective in remembering and imagining. Remembering the personal past is a key part of mental life, vital for identity and social sharing as well as for tracking the truth: but why do we sometimes remember past events from an external or 'observer' perspective, seeing ourselves in the remembered scene? This project in philosophy of mind develops a new theory of psychological perspective.
The Demands of Reason. We may reason well or badly, depending on whether we satisfy two kinds of demands. We must register all and only relevant considerations and we must respond correctly to them. But ‘the demands of reason’, as described in this project, remain inadequately understood. Drawing on work from philosophy, psychology, political and legal theory, and the social sciences, this project aims to investigate the nature, power and reach of reason’s demands. It aims to shed light on what ....The Demands of Reason. We may reason well or badly, depending on whether we satisfy two kinds of demands. We must register all and only relevant considerations and we must respond correctly to them. But ‘the demands of reason’, as described in this project, remain inadequately understood. Drawing on work from philosophy, psychology, political and legal theory, and the social sciences, this project aims to investigate the nature, power and reach of reason’s demands. It aims to shed light on what they are; whether they have the positive transformative power attributed to them by enlightenment thinkers; and whether they can be adduced to explain the nature and origin of other important normative demands, such as the demands of morality, prudence and law.Read moreRead less
Agency, Rationality, and Emotion. This project addresses the puzzling and multiple connections between emotion and reason. Emotion, long viewed as an impediment to rationality, actually helps us reason well. Our image of good public deliberation as unemotional needs to be challenged and our understanding of the place of reason and emotion in human life needs to be revised. The project engages and contributes to new international research on emotion and rationality thereby contributing to Austral ....Agency, Rationality, and Emotion. This project addresses the puzzling and multiple connections between emotion and reason. Emotion, long viewed as an impediment to rationality, actually helps us reason well. Our image of good public deliberation as unemotional needs to be challenged and our understanding of the place of reason and emotion in human life needs to be revised. The project engages and contributes to new international research on emotion and rationality thereby contributing to Australia's international reputation for excellence in philosophy.
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