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Practical Evaluation Methods Using Efficient and Equitable Social Welfare Orderings

Norihito’s research project aims to provide reasonable and practical methods for the following three issues through axiomatic and normative analysis.

(i) Acceptable Social Welfare Orderings with Variable Populations

He characterizes a class of acceptable SWOs with variable populations and proposes some practical applications for comparing international income or wealth. Moreover, he shows some possibility/ impossibility results by revisiting classical dilemmas in population ethics.

(ii) Reexamination of Classical Normative Concepts and Ideas

He classifies and scrutinizes some classical concepts of normative ideas such as egalitarianism, sufficientarianism, responsibility, liberalism, etc. Moreover, he shows some logical relationships among these ideas.

(iii) Acceptable Social Welfare Orderings under Risky or Uncertain Situations

He characterizes a class of acceptable SWOs axiomatically under uncertain or risky situations. In addition, he compares and classifies some alternative solutions such as the precautionary principle and simple cost-effectiveness analysis.

Social Decision Making and Allocations with Multiple Criteria

Satoshi’s research project aims to construct reasonable social decision criteria and allocation rules for economic resources in societies by taking trade-offs among various criteria into account. In particular, he is trying to consider the following problems.

(i) Constructing Social Welfare Orderings.

He characterizes a class of acceptable SWOs combining normative criteria such as utilitarianism, leximin, and sufficientarianism.

(ii) Constructing Allocation rules.

He characterizes the allocation rules that incorporate and compromise seemingly contracting principles: marginalism and egalitarianism.

Comparing Human and Artificial Expertise: Theoretical and Experimental Approaches

Recently there have been significant breakthroughs in understanding of human and machine expertise, to include the performance of AlphaZero in games, and, of course, the performance of large language models. Whether or not these programs are useful models of human expertise, their existence raises important questions about the relationship between human and machine expertise and how they can be most profitably deployed. In this project we will examine AlphaZero as a model of human expertise through theoretical analysis and through experimental work. We will also work on a book summarizing recent developments in expertise research in human and machine expertise.

The Rational Foundation of Scientific Knowledge

Jianqin Zhang’s research is mainly to discuss about the necessity of an absolutely independent status of ontological existence to understand the reason and principle of scientific knowledge. From the epistemological view, most unobservable entities and mechanisms appeared, which made many scientists and philosophers reflect on the essence and existence of science following the development of some special fields of science. Then she will talk about the issue between scientific realism and scientific antirealism whether we should keep optimistic to the future of science. Contrary with the pessimistic inductivism, she will investigate the rational foundation of scientific knowledge strictly in order to have confidence in the progress of scientific development.

Highly Idealized Models and Epistemic Achievements: Models of the Atomic Nucleus

Science is an enterprise that studies the world using theories and different methods. In this labor, models are helpful to research and understand natural phenomena. Two questions are crucial to characterize models and their functions: What are models? Furthermore, How do we learn with them? The thesis will focus on how using models in scientific practice facilitates obtaining relevant epistemic achievements; in particular, the focus will be on issues related to the scientific understanding of physical phenomena through models. The work will take nuclear models in physics as study cases to illustrate how these models epistemically function in scientific practice.

Philosophical Research on Artificial Mind's Challenge to Human Mind

Gong Zhichao aims to make a conceptual distinction between the human mind and an artificial mind. For example, what is artificial mind? How is artificial intelligence possible?

He will conduct a philosophical review from the perspective of artificial intelligence imitating the human mind. For example, can the problem of qualia and the difficulty of consciousness be solved in the field of artificial intelligence? Besides this, he will explore whether there is a cognitive paradigm that can unify the human mind and artificial mind? For example, computationalism, 4E cognition, and predictive processing theory.

Individual Moral Judgment and Normative Evaluation

The research question of Iwata’s project is what kind of cognitive mechanism people’s moral judgments follow and how to evaluate people’s actions and public policies based on their moral judgments. To achieve this goal, his project adopts a behavioral welfare economics approach in which normative implications are derived from people’s actual actions and judgments. His project does not aim to propose a moral principle that resolves real-world moral dilemmas. Rather, it aims to provide a prescription for people’s actions and public policies under the dilemmas. Iwata will write a book on welfare economics and moral psychology and complete three papers, one of which is on evaluating choice architecture under a policymaker’s dilemma.

Public Reason and Values in Science

Public reason, which requires adopting rules justifiable to all under their authority, is essential for justice in liberal democracies. Given the role of science in rule formation, there is growing interest in connecting the idea of public reason to ongoing discussions about values in science. This project aims to tackle two foundational questions related to public reason and values in science: Should public reason regulate scientific research, and if so, in what ways? Does public reason impose duties on members of the scientific community? If so, what are the duties, and to whom do they apply?