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 formal model that clarifies the relationship between key components of her theory-schemas and behavioral rules-offering theorists and practitioners new tools for modeling and measuring social and behavioral change.

This paper contributes to the literature on how diversity impacts groups by exploring how communication mediates the ability of diverse individuals to work together. To do so we incorporate a communication channel into a representative model of problem-solving by teams of diverse agents that provides the foundations for one of the most widely cited analytical results in the literature on diversity and team performance: the “Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem”. We extend the model to account for the fact that communication between agents is a necessary feature of team problem-solving, and we introduce the possibility that this communication occurs with error, and that this error might sometimes be correlated with how different agents are from one another. Accounting for communication does not give us reason to reject the claim associated with the theorem, that functionally diverse teams tend to outperform more homogeneous teams (even when the homogeneous teams are comprised of individuals with more task relevant expertise). However, incorporating communication into our model clarifies the role that four factors play in moderating the extent to which teams capture the benefits of functional diversity: i) the complexity of the problem, ii) the number of available approaches to solving the problem, iii) the ways of encoding or conceptualizing a problem, and iv) institutional characteristics, such as how teams work together. Specifically, we find that whether (and to what extent) teams capture the benefits of functional diversity depends on how these four factors interact with one another. Particularly important is the role institutional dynamics (like search methods) play in moderating or amplifying interpersonal frictions (like miscommunication), and notably we find that institutions that work in one setting can be counterproductive in other settings.

Very often, when we think about why people do what they do, we consider their personal preferences, beliefs, desires, or commitments. These are meant to give an explanation for their individual actions. Bob mowed his lawn because he likes to keep his yard looking nice. Carol shows up to work a bit before 9 am every day because she values punctuality. And so on. When we think about larger-scale issues, we often assume that the way to change people's behaviors is to change the laws. If you want to reduce jaywalking, make it illegal and punish jaywalkers with a hefty fine. If you want to promote education, legally mandate that boys and girls must go to school. On this sort of view, we can see people's actions as some combination of their individual wants and desires, as constrained by whatever is legal. To complicate this picture further, we could add some kind of budget constraint. People do as much to satisfy their preferences as they can while constrained by their resources and what's legally permissible.

A prominent way of conceiving of, and defending, a robust right to free speech is the marketplace of ideas. The speech environment improves both because of the ultimate victory of good arguments over bad and because the participants become increasingly sophisticated evaluators of arguments. Here I would like to focus on what happens to a marketplace of ideas model when there is no longer a single market. Multiple simultaneous speech markets have a variety of interesting properties that we may wish to consider in contrast to a single discussion, especially in their capacity to accommodate diversity. However, the very thing that can make multiple conversational communities so valuable—the ability for niche communities to vigorously engage in the issues that most interest them, freed from having to find ways of working them into a broader conversation—can also lead to dysfunction in the mechanisms that Mill relies on to generate the benefits of free speech. Two core liberal rights—free speech and free association—can combine to make speech less effective at allowing better arguments to surface. Lastly, I consider approaches for recovering the benefits of a robust speech environment, even when it is split across multiple epistemic communities.

In Trust in a Polarized Age, Kevin Vallier gives himself the unenviable and yet essential task of diagnosing and responding to the problem of democratic governance in a polarized society.1 Focusing his attention on the USA, he argues compellingly that the scale and fervour of our political disagreements are tied to a steady collapse of social and political trust. Surveys suggest that we have little trust in our government institutions. Not only do we distrust politicians from the other political party, but we also distrust people who vote for the other political party. What’s worse, Vallier provides evidence that suggests that affective polarization has also gone way up. We don’t merely distrust each other, we are growing to hate each other as well. A cursory glance at social media would provide further evidence. As Vallier points out, this state of affairs is used by some ‘post-liberals’ to suggest...

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It is well-known that people will adjust their first-order beliefs based on observations of others. We explore how such adjustments interact with second-order beliefs regarding universalism and relativism in a population. Across a range of simulations, we show that populations where individuals have a tendency toward universalism converge more quickly in coordination problems, and generate higher total payoffs, than do populations where individuals have a tendency toward relativism. Thus, in contexts where coordination is important, belief in universalism is advantageous. However, we also show, across a range of simulations, that universalism will enshrine inequalities and eliminate diversity, and in these cases it seems that relativism has its own advantages.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsVanderschraaf, Peter. Strategic Justice: Convention and Problems of Balancing Divergent Interests. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 416. $90.00 (cloth).Ryan MuldoonRyan MuldoonUniversity at Buffalo Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 131, Number 2January 2021 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/711223 Views: 79Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jeppe von Platz The silver bullet: justice as mutual advantage and the vulnerability objection, Synthese 200, no.22 (Apr 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03575-4Michael Moehler Strategic justice, conventionalism, and bargaining theory, Synthese 199, no.3-43-4 (May 2021): 8317–8334.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03164-x

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 survey with salient rewards to elicit people’s attitudes regarding the punishment of distrusting behavior in a trust game. Our results show that people do not behave as though trust is a norm. Our participants expected that most people would not punish untrusting investors, regardless of whether the potential trustee was a stranger or a friend. In contrast, our participants behaved as though being trustworthy is a norm. Most participants believed that most people would punish someone who failed to reciprocate a stranger’s or a friend’s trust. We conclude that, while we were able to reproduce previous results establishing that there is a norm of reciprocity, we found no evidence for a corresponding norm of trust, even among friends.

The social world is permeated by risk exposure, and especially systemic risk, that is, risk we cannot really hedge against or protect ourselves from. Systemic risk is determined by the basic structure of a social system and affects the kind of choices we are able to make in our lives. We argue that when systemic risk is 'too low' society becomes stagnant as it does not allow for processes of creative destruction that, according to a long tradition of economic thinking, are at the core of what allows for growth, and thus progress. In the same way, when levels of systemic risk are too low, the range of option risks that individuals can decide to bear is itself too low and thus hampers their self-respect. At the same time, we will argue that when levels of systemic risk are too high, society runs the risk of marginalizing the potential contributions to innovation and growth of a large part of its members, for when there is too much systemic risk, too much of one's life is uncertain, and thus investing in one's future becomes less important. Excessive levels of systemic risk entail a lesser ability to pursue one's conception of the good.

Journal of Political PhilosophyVolume 29, Issue 2 p. 211-230 Original Article In Public Reason, Diversity Trumps Coherence* Kevin Vallier, Corresponding Author Kevin Vallier kvallie@bgsu.edu Philosophy, Bowling Green State University Email: kvallie@bgsu.eduSearch for more papers by this authorRyan Muldoon, Ryan Muldoon Philosophy, State University of New York, BuffaloSearch for more papers by this author Kevin Vallier, Corresponding Author Kevin Vallier kvallie@bgsu.edu Philosophy, Bowling Green State University Email: kvallie@bgsu.eduSearch for more papers by this authorRyan Muldoon, Ryan Muldoon Philosophy, State University of New York, BuffaloSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12227Citations: 4 * The authors would like to thank Christian Barry, Paul Franco, and anonymous reviewers for extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume29, Issue2June 2021Pages 211-230 RelatedInformation

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 apparatus, and complicates our approach in utilizing social norms for democratic policy ends. I will distinguish between two forms of social norms orientations in policy: a diagnostic approach and a design approach. We will see that the diagnostic approach better models a Humean approach to supporting social norms, and a design approach has a more Millian character. While it is easier to justify a design approach in the abstract, as it has very little room for abuses of state authority, if Mill is right that social norms can be a source of coercive power that runs afoul of the harm principle, then a design approach will sometimes be necessary to counter this form of tyranny. However, this latter approach is complex, and as such we may want to take a recommendation from Mockus to focus on deliberative approaches to norm change.

Mill's defense of free speech rests on the idea of a competition amongst arguments and ideas. We should avoid censoring speech, Mill argues, because we might find that unpopular ideas are in fact true, and even if they are wrong, they may help us come up with better arguments for better ideas However, there is an important implicit assumption in the background of Mill's account: that the population participating in free speech is unaffected by the content of debates. However, there are reasons to think that this is false where the subject of the speech and the participants start to overlap. Indeed, Langton (1993), Fricker (2007), and others have argued that certain forms of speech can serve to undermine the ability of others to fully participate in the marketplace of ideas. In this paper, I develop the argument that we have epistemic reasons for wanting to create more inclusive debates, and that may give us reason to shape discussion in a way that serves to create a more robust exchange of ideas. This may require us to place some topics out of bounds for reasonable discussion. However, placing too many things outside of the realm of discussion has its own problems, as it can undermine robust deliberation. As such, we need to look for a compromise between inclusion of ideas and inclusion of people as a deliberative principle. We thus need a reasonable principle for distributing the burdens imposed by a more robust marketplace of ideas. However, this distribution is made more complex by the fact that different parties may hold different epistemic perspectives (as defined in Muldoon 2016) and as a result disagree on what might constitute a burden. As such, this distributive principle must be able to deal with deep disagreements on the kinds of burdens that participants recognize.