Minhoto counterpoints: On metaphysical pluralism and social emergence

Sociology should be the foundational science of social emergence. But to date, sociologists have neglected emergence, and studies of emergence are more common within microeconomics. Moving forward, I argue that a science of social emergence requires two advances beyond current approaches—and that sociology is better positioned than economics to make these advances. First, consistent with existing critiques of microeconomics, I argue that we need a more sophisticated representation of individual agents. Second, I argue that multi-agent models need a more sophisticated representation of interaction processes. The agent communication languages currently used by multi-agent systems researchers are not appropriate for modeling human societies. I conclude by arguing that the scientific study of interaction and emergence will have to migrate out of microeconomics and become a part of sociology. Sociologists, for their part, should embrace multi-agent modeling to pursue a more rigorous study of these traditional sociological issues.

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Social Emergence

There Is No Theory of Everything ◽

10.1007/978-3-319-59150-6_7 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 163-190

Author(s):

Lars Q. English

Keyword(s):

Social Emergence

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Afterword

Representations ◽

10.1525/rep.2017.137.1.167 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 137 (1) ◽

pp. 167-173

Author(s):

Tristram Wolff

Keyword(s):

Linguistic Anthropology ◽

Close Reading ◽

Special Issue ◽

Social Emergence ◽

Critical Perspectives

In closing the special issue “Language-in-Use,” this afterword briefly reflects on the shared work of the essays gathered here. It then considers how a renewed relation with the critical perspectives of fields like linguistic anthropology and ethnopoetics might diversify concepts available for the study and practice of close reading by relocating form in affectively and culturally charged situations of social emergence.

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Modeling the Social Dynamics of Moral Enhancement

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics ◽

10.1017/s0963180116001109 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 431-445 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

ANDERS SANDBERG ◽

JOAO FABIANO

Keyword(s):

Social Dynamics ◽

Value Orientations ◽

Social Value ◽

Moral Enhancement ◽

Personal Satisfaction ◽

Attractor State ◽

The Social ◽

Social Value Orientations ◽

The Stability ◽

Social Emergence

Abstract:How individuals tend to evaluate the combination of their own and other’s payoffs—social value orientations—is likely to be a potential target of future moral enhancers. However, the stability of cooperation in human societies has been buttressed by evolved mildly prosocial orientations. If they could be changed, would this destabilize the cooperative structure of society? We simulate a model of moral enhancement in which agents play games with each other and can enhance their orientations based on maximizing personal satisfaction. We find that given the assumption that very low payoffs lead agents to be removed from the population, there is a broadly stable prosocial attractor state. However, the balance between prosociality and individual payoff-maximization is affected by different factors. Agents maximizing their own satisfaction can produce emergent shifts in society that reduce everybody’s satisfaction. Moral enhancement considerations should take the issues of social emergence into account.

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