Research Areas
Social and Political Philosophy
Political philosophy, that part of philosophy that analyzes institutions, has enjoyed a tremendous resurgence during the past thirty years. Philosophers at Carnegie Mellon contribute actively to this resurgence, particularly by their study of social conventions and norms and the insights of classics of political thought from the time of Thucydides and Plato to the present. Research in political philosophy at Carnegie Mellon is distinctive, if not unique, among American philosophy departments in the ways it combines conventional philosophical argument, historical scholarship and contemporary analytical methods and empirical findings.
Political philosophy examines the institutions that can regulate societies, ranging from rules of etiquette to nation states and even the possibility of world government. Political philosophy has both an explanatory and a normative dimension. Political philosophers try to explain the origins and continued existence of the institutions that have in fact governed societies. They also argue that certain institutions should be established or reformed in order to realize a more beneficial or a more just society. Political philosophy has a distinguished history, dating at least as far back as Plato's and Aristotle's works on politics. However, by the mid-20th century it was widely thought that the scope of political philosophy is necessarily limited to relatively homogeneous societies whose members all agree upon a set of common aims to pursue. Starting in the 1950s, a number of philosophers challenged this assumption, and proposed alternative accounts of distributive justice that do not presuppose that individuals in society agree completely on how to value alternative goods, yet still recommend specific divisions of goods as the just distributions in practical situations. These early proposals spurred a revival of the social contract tradition in the late 20th century, whose proponents meant to be applicable to pluralistic societies. The new political contractarianism and the critical responses it has raised have both revived and transformed political philosophy. At the start of the new millennium, research in political philosophy shows no sign of abating.
At Carnegie Mellon, Cristina Bicchieri and Peter Vanderschraaf work on conventions and norms, and Robert Cavalier and Vanderschraaf work on certain issues raised in the classical tradition of political philosophy. The institutions that govern a society constitute this society's social contract. Political philosophers since Plato have debated whether social contracts are entirely conventional or have their basis in and are to be evaluated by some nonconventional standard, such as the natural law. Remarkably, philosophers have for the most part continued the debate without seriously investigating the notion of convention itself. Vanderschraaf analyzes convention using game theory, the formal theory of interactive decisions. A key goal of this research is to help political philosophers better understand the appropriate role of convention in social contracts.
Bicchieri explores the closely related notion of a norm. Like conventions, norms have received relatively little attention from philosophers despite their obvious importance in political philosophy. In her analysis of norms, Bicchieri applies game-theoretic and evolutionary tools along with models of decision-making developed in cognitive and social psychology. Bicchieri's account of norms takes into special consideration agents' cognitive biases. Bicchieri's account of norms is similar to Vanderschraaf's account of conventions. Indeed, determining how much the two notions overlap is an area for serious study. Bicchieri's work on norms is of particular importance to political philosophers interested in understanding how certain parts of the social contract are formed and reformed.
Cavalier and Vanderschraaf investigate certain issues raised in the history of political philosophy, particularly the evolution of democratic theory (Cavalier) and the relationship between justice and advantage (Vanderschraaf). Vanderschraaf's work focuses on early modern political philosophy, especially the writings of Grotius, Hobbes and Hume, which defend an analysis of justice entirely in terms of mutual advantage. Here Vanderschraaf's historical research incorporates recent developments in computer technology and game theory, with a view to shedding new light on old questions. He uses computer simulations and analytical results in game theory to test certain claims that systems of justice are actually the product of individuals learning to follow mutually beneficial arrangements
Cavalier traces the evolution of democratic theory from its rise within the Greek polis through the debates of the Federalist up to its current role in the concept of "deliberative democracy" (Cohen, Elster, Habermas). Cavalier applies his research to real world situations by overseeing the development and deployment of media rich Computer Mediated Communication tools for use in actual Deliberative Polls (Fishkin) and other e-democracy initiatives.