myresearch
My work is in philosophy of social science. Currently I have two projects:
1. Models, Explanation and Policy
This project stems from my doctoral dissertation at UCSD. I am interested in understanding rational choice models originating in economics and now used all over social sciences. What are we warranted to conclude on the basis of these models about the real world? What is their exact role in historical explanation and policy making? What is progress in model-based social science? Is modelling an efficient method of inference?
Main papers:
"Making Models Count" Philosophy of Science July 2008, 75:383-404.
"No Revolution Necessary: Neural Mechanisms for Economics" (with Carl Craver) Economics and Philosophy 2008, 24: 281-305.
"Progress in Economics: Lessons from the Spectrum Auctions" (with Robert Northcott) in Harold Kincaid and Don Ross (Eds.) Oxford Handbook for Philosophy of Economics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, 306-336
"When Analytic Narratives Explain" The Journal of Philosophy of History March 2009: 3/1, 1-24.
"Buyer Beware: Robustness Analyses in Economics and Biology" (with Jay Odenbaugh) in Biology and Philosophy 2011, 26:757–771, DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9278-y.
"It's Just a Feeling: Why Economic Models Do Not Explain" (with Robert Northcott) forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Methodology. (Commentary on Julian Reiss's "Explanation Paradox"). Here is the journal version.
"The Prisoner's Dilemma doesn't explain much" (with Robert Northcott) forthcoming in The Prisoner's Dilemma (ed). Martin Peterson, Cambridge University Press.
"Armchair Science" (with Robert Northcott) in progress.
2. Well-Being, Happiness and Policy
What makes a measure of well-being valid? This is a focus of a series of papers on various ways in which philosophers and social scientists conceptualize happiness and well-being. I believe that no existing theory of well-being has the resources to underwrite the many projects that employ a notion of well-being across sciences, policy and personal deliberation. For example, child well-being and well-being in illness will need their own theories. A book is in the works, provisionally entitled A Philosophy for the Science of Well-being (under contract with OUP).
Main Papers:
"Doing Well In The Circumstance" Journal of Moral Philosophy. 2013, 10/3: 310-328. DOI: 10.1163/174552412X628814.
"Values and the Science of Wellbeing: A Recipe for Mixture" in the Oxford Handbook for Philosophy of Social Science, ed. H Kincaid, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 625-645.
"Well-being as an Object of Science" Philosophy of Science 79 (5):678-689 (2012).
"High Fidelity Economics" (with Dan Haybron) in the Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology (eds. John Davis and Wade Hands), Edward Elgar, 2011, 94-117.
"Towards a Theory of Child Well-being" (with Ramesh Raghavan) forthcoming in Social Indicators Research
"Well-being and Philosophy of Science" forthcoming in Philosophy Compass.
Lots more in the pipelines. Please email for drafts.