Ryan Muldoon
Biographic Data
| ID | 460020 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ryan Muldoon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ryan |
| FAMILY NAME | Muldoon |
| SIGNATURE | MULDOON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Buffalo, State University of New York |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7269-6209 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Pursuing social progress: The question of orientation
We examine the “problem of social change”, focusing on whether efforts should be oriented toward long-term ideals or piecemeal improvements. We analyse the trade-off between these approaches: pursuing ideals may require short-term sacrifices, while incremental changes may hinder realizing an ideal. We introduce an analytical framework for structuring thought experiments that can provide traction on these issues, and present two implementations th…
Explainable GeoAI and statistical analysis reveal complementary insights about disparities of 311 help requests during the 2022 Buffalo blizzard
Revising Rules, Shifting Schemas: Toward an Expanded Formal Account of Norm Change
Norms hold a central role in social philosophy, with Cristina Bicchieri's game‐theoretic approach being one of the most influential accounts. Bicchieri's framework has inspired numerous successful interventions, improving outcomes across diverse communities worldwide. However, certain aspects of Bicchieri's theory remain underdeveloped, limiting its ability to predict the best strategies for norm change. To address this, we present a simple forma…
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, Second Edition is a comprehensive, definitive reference work, providing an up-to-date survey of the field, charting its history and key figures and movements, and addressing enduring questions as well as contemporary research
The meta-wisdom of crowds
In Public Reason, Diversity Trumps Coherence
Understanding Norms and Changing Them
It is crucial for policymakers to focus their attention on social norms if they want to improve policy outcomes, but doing so brings in new normative questions about the appropriate role of the state. Indeed, I argue that efforts to reduce coercion at the state level can create potentially pernicious and difficult to eliminate forms of coercion at the informal level. This creates a new normative challenge for thinking about the broader regulatory…
Exploring tradeoffs in accommodating moral diversity
Two views of assistance
The article makes two substantive contributions to the existing literature on the ethics of international assistance and global justice. First, it builds what we take to be a widely held set of propositions about international assistance into a consistent view (i.e. the relief view), and articulates a strong case against its desirability. Second, it sketches a more attractive alternative (i.e. the development view). To do so the article uses Sen’…
Free Speech and Learning from Difference
Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World
Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimenta…
Expanding the Justificatory Framework of Mill's Experiments in Living
In On Liberty , Mill introduced the concept of ‘experiments in living’. I will provide an account of what Mill saw to be the basic problem he was addressing – the extensive pressure to fit in with the crowd, and how this bred mediocrity. I connect this to worries about public reason models of justification. I argue that a generalized version of Mill's argument offers us a better path to political justification stemming from experimentation. Rathe…
Introduction, SI of Synthese “The collective dimension of science”
Why are there descriptive norms? Because we looked for them
Disagreement behind the veil of ignorance
On the emergence of descriptive norms
A descriptive norm is a behavioral rule that individuals follow when their empirical expectations of others following the same rule are met. We aim to provide an account of the emergence of descriptive norms by first looking at a simple case, that of the standing ovation. We examine the structure of a standing ovation, and show it can be generalized to describe the emergence of a wide range of descriptive norms
Diversity and the Division of Cognitive Labor
In epistemology and the philosophy of science, there has been an increasing interest in the social aspects of belief acquisition. In particular, there has been a focus on the division of cognitive labor in science. This essay explores several different models of the division of cognitive labor, with particular focus on Kitcher, Strevens, Weisberg and Muldoon, and Zollman. The essay then shows how many of the benefits of the division of cognitive …
Segregation That No One Seeks
This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different …
Robustness and idealization in models of cognitive labor
Trustworthiness is a social norm, but trusting is not
Previous literature has demonstrated the important role that trust plays in developing and maintaining well-functioning societies. However, if we are to learn how to increase levels of trust in society, we must first understand why people choose to trust others. One potential answer to this is that people view trust as normative: there is a social norm for trusting that imposes punishment for noncompliance. To test this, we report data from a sur…
The conditions of tolerance
The philosophical tradition of liberal political thought has come to see tolerance as a crucial element of a liberal political order. However, while much has been made of the value of toleration, little work has been done on individual-level motivations for tolerant behavior. In this article, we seek to develop an account of the rational motivations for toleration and of where the limits of toleration lie. We first present a very simple model of …
Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor
Because contemporary scientific research is conducted by groups of scientists, understanding scientific progress requires understanding this division of cognitive labor. We present a novel agent-based model of scientific research in which scientists divide their labor to explore an unknown epistemic landscape. Scientists aim to find the most epistemically significant research approaches. We consider three different search strategies that scientis…
Robust Simulations
As scientists begin to study increasingly complex questions, many have turned to computer simulation to assist in their inquiry. This methodology has been challenged by both analytic modelers and experimentalists. A primary objection of analytic modelers is that simulations are simply too complicated to perform model verification. From the experimentalist perspective it is that there is no means to demonstrate the reality of simulation. The aim o…
Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor
Because contemporary scientific research is conducted by groups of scientists, understanding scientific progress requires understanding this division of cognitive labor. We present a novel agent-based model of scientific research in which scientists divide their labor to explore an unknown epistemic landscape. Scientists aim to find the most epistemically significant research approaches. We consider three different search strategies that scientis…
Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World
Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimenta…
Diversity and the Division of Cognitive Labor
In epistemology and the philosophy of science, there has been an increasing interest in the social aspects of belief acquisition. In particular, there has been a focus on the division of cognitive labor in science. This essay explores several different models of the division of cognitive labor, with particular focus on Kitcher, Strevens, Weisberg and Muldoon, and Zollman. The essay then shows how many of the benefits of the division of cognitive …
Robustness and idealization in models of cognitive labor
Robust Simulations
As scientists begin to study increasingly complex questions, many have turned to computer simulation to assist in their inquiry. This methodology has been challenged by both analytic modelers and experimentalists. A primary objection of analytic modelers is that simulations are simply too complicated to perform model verification. From the experimentalist perspective it is that there is no means to demonstrate the reality of simulation. The aim o…
On the emergence of descriptive norms
A descriptive norm is a behavioral rule that individuals follow when their empirical expectations of others following the same rule are met. We aim to provide an account of the emergence of descriptive norms by first looking at a simple case, that of the standing ovation. We examine the structure of a standing ovation, and show it can be generalized to describe the emergence of a wide range of descriptive norms
Segregation That No One Seeks
This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different …
Trustworthiness is a social norm, but trusting is not
Previous literature has demonstrated the important role that trust plays in developing and maintaining well-functioning societies. However, if we are to learn how to increase levels of trust in society, we must first understand why people choose to trust others. One potential answer to this is that people view trust as normative: there is a social norm for trusting that imposes punishment for noncompliance. To test this, we report data from a sur…
Expanding the Justificatory Framework of Mill's Experiments in Living
In On Liberty , Mill introduced the concept of ‘experiments in living’. I will provide an account of what Mill saw to be the basic problem he was addressing – the extensive pressure to fit in with the crowd, and how this bred mediocrity. I connect this to worries about public reason models of justification. I argue that a generalized version of Mill's argument offers us a better path to political justification stemming from experimentation. Rathe…
In Public Reason, Diversity Trumps Coherence
The conditions of tolerance
The philosophical tradition of liberal political thought has come to see tolerance as a crucial element of a liberal political order. However, while much has been made of the value of toleration, little work has been done on individual-level motivations for tolerant behavior. In this article, we seek to develop an account of the rational motivations for toleration and of where the limits of toleration lie. We first present a very simple model of …
Disagreement behind the veil of ignorance
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, Second Edition is a comprehensive, definitive reference work, providing an up-to-date survey of the field, charting its history and key figures and movements, and addressing enduring questions as well as contemporary research
Robust Simulations
As scientists begin to study increasingly complex questions, many have turned to computer simulation to assist in their inquiry. This methodology has been challenged by both analytic modelers and experimentalists. A primary objection of analytic modelers is that simulations are simply too complicated to perform model verification. From the experimentalist perspective it is that there is no means to demonstrate the reality of simulation. The aim o…
Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor
Because contemporary scientific research is conducted by groups of scientists, understanding scientific progress requires understanding this division of cognitive labor. We present a novel agent-based model of scientific research in which scientists divide their labor to explore an unknown epistemic landscape. Scientists aim to find the most epistemically significant research approaches. We consider three different search strategies that scientis…
Robustness and idealization in models of cognitive labor
Trustworthiness is a social norm, but trusting is not
Previous literature has demonstrated the important role that trust plays in developing and maintaining well-functioning societies. However, if we are to learn how to increase levels of trust in society, we must first understand why people choose to trust others. One potential answer to this is that people view trust as normative: there is a social norm for trusting that imposes punishment for noncompliance. To test this, we report data from a sur…
The conditions of tolerance
The philosophical tradition of liberal political thought has come to see tolerance as a crucial element of a liberal political order. However, while much has been made of the value of toleration, little work has been done on individual-level motivations for tolerant behavior. In this article, we seek to develop an account of the rational motivations for toleration and of where the limits of toleration lie. We first present a very simple model of …
Segregation That No One Seeks
This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different …
Disagreement behind the veil of ignorance
On the emergence of descriptive norms
A descriptive norm is a behavioral rule that individuals follow when their empirical expectations of others following the same rule are met. We aim to provide an account of the emergence of descriptive norms by first looking at a simple case, that of the standing ovation. We examine the structure of a standing ovation, and show it can be generalized to describe the emergence of a wide range of descriptive norms
Diversity and the Division of Cognitive Labor
In epistemology and the philosophy of science, there has been an increasing interest in the social aspects of belief acquisition. In particular, there has been a focus on the division of cognitive labor in science. This essay explores several different models of the division of cognitive labor, with particular focus on Kitcher, Strevens, Weisberg and Muldoon, and Zollman. The essay then shows how many of the benefits of the division of cognitive …
Introduction, SI of Synthese “The collective dimension of science”
Why are there descriptive norms? Because we looked for them
Expanding the Justificatory Framework of Mill's Experiments in Living
In On Liberty , Mill introduced the concept of ‘experiments in living’. I will provide an account of what Mill saw to be the basic problem he was addressing – the extensive pressure to fit in with the crowd, and how this bred mediocrity. I connect this to worries about public reason models of justification. I argue that a generalized version of Mill's argument offers us a better path to political justification stemming from experimentation. Rathe…
Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World
Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimenta…
Exploring tradeoffs in accommodating moral diversity
Two views of assistance
The article makes two substantive contributions to the existing literature on the ethics of international assistance and global justice. First, it builds what we take to be a widely held set of propositions about international assistance into a consistent view (i.e. the relief view), and articulates a strong case against its desirability. Second, it sketches a more attractive alternative (i.e. the development view). To do so the article uses Sen’…
Free Speech and Learning from Difference
Understanding Norms and Changing Them
It is crucial for policymakers to focus their attention on social norms if they want to improve policy outcomes, but doing so brings in new normative questions about the appropriate role of the state. Indeed, I argue that efforts to reduce coercion at the state level can create potentially pernicious and difficult to eliminate forms of coercion at the informal level. This creates a new normative challenge for thinking about the broader regulatory…
In Public Reason, Diversity Trumps Coherence
The meta-wisdom of crowds
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, Second Edition is a comprehensive, definitive reference work, providing an up-to-date survey of the field, charting its history and key figures and movements, and addressing enduring questions as well as contemporary research
Explainable GeoAI and statistical analysis reveal complementary insights about disparities of 311 help requests during the 2022 Buffalo blizzard
Revising Rules, Shifting Schemas: Toward an Expanded Formal Account of Norm Change
Norms hold a central role in social philosophy, with Cristina Bicchieri's game‐theoretic approach being one of the most influential accounts. Bicchieri's framework has inspired numerous successful interventions, improving outcomes across diverse communities worldwide. However, certain aspects of Bicchieri's theory remain underdeveloped, limiting its ability to predict the best strategies for norm change. To address this, we present a simple forma…
Pursuing social progress: The question of orientation
We examine the “problem of social change”, focusing on whether efforts should be oriented toward long-term ideals or piecemeal improvements. We analyse the trade-off between these approaches: pursuing ideals may require short-term sacrifices, while incremental changes may hinder realizing an ideal. We introduce an analytical framework for structuring thought experiments that can provide traction on these issues, and present two implementations th…
Epistemology (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (7 works)