Elizabeth Anderson

This project aims 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. This theory is developed through case studies in the history of contention over slavery and emancipation, mostly in the US, 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.