Research

Research projects:

The Origins of Normativity. A series of papers, talks, and ultimately a book on the evolution of normative psychology, the cultural origins of morality, and the continuity of humans and other animals in terms of social and moral cognition.

Pluralistic Folk Psychology. I am continuing to develop my pluralistic theory of social understanding, introduced in my first book Do Apes Read Minds: Toward a New Folk Psychology. On this account, humans and perhaps other apes understand other minds using a variety of techniques, which can include character traits, stereotypes, social norms, scripts and schemas, past behavior, and the ascription of mental state. The view admits that there are individual differences in how often these methods are used, and how successful these methods might be.

Animal Consciousness. I have a manuscript that calls for the null hypothesis in the science of consciousness to be that all animals are conscious. I address animal consciousness in both The Animal Mind (second edition, Chapter 4) and How to Study Animal Minds (Chapter 2). I defend the Curative Principle for Comparative Psychology: when ignoring consciousness hinders the ability to generate new knowledge of animal mind and behavior, and there is the potential to generate new knowledge by premising consciousness, scientists ought to presume that the animals they study are conscious.

Personhood. I defend a cluster concept of person as a social kind, and apply this notion to questions about the moral status of animals, robots, and AIs. This project consists of a series of papers and talks, a co-authored amicus briefs in support of chimpanzee personhood, and a short co-authored book Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief.

PhD Students (current)

Marriah Alcantara
Tyler Delmore
William O’Shea
Rebecca Ring
Fatima Sadek
Brandon Tinklenberg
Elizabeth Waldberg
Caleb Wildes