Professor Elizabeth Anderson has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. ACLS Fellowships support a faculty member through a year of continuous full-time research and writing. The criteria used in judging ACLS fellowship applications include the potential of the project to make an original and significant contribution to knowledge, and the scholarly record and career trajectory of the applicant. There were 1121 applicants for 65 different ACLS Fellowships this year. Liz received one of only 20 fellowships available to full professors. Congratulations, Liz!

 

Research Project- Moral Epistemology from a Pragmatist Perspective: Case Studies from the History of Abolition and Emancipation 

 

Project Abstract- I aim to develop a theory of how people can improve their moral beliefs through experiments in living and knowledge-enhancing practices of contention or interpersonal claim-making. I shall develop this theory through case studies in the history of contention over slavery and emancipation, mostly in the U.S., using work in social and moral psychology on cognitive biases and the influence of social situations on value judgments. The result will be a pragmatist, naturalized moral epistemology in the social contract tradition.