Why people pool their resources to form firms, and why cells join together into organisms, are fundamental questions in economics and biology, respectively. They may appear as distinct issues on the surface, but they effectively deal with the same phenomenon: collective agency. Central to the functionality of both firms and organisms is the question of what holds them together to such an extent as to allow them to act as one. Any collective agent, be it a firm or a multicellular organism, needs to find ways of managing internal conflicts. While work in biology and economics has devoted much attention to the benefits of initially coming together, less effort has gone into analyzing how collective agency is subsequently maintained in the face of internal conflicts.

Schedule:

Morning

• 9:00 Arvid Ågren, Cleveland Clinic
  • Introduction and Welcome
• 9:15 Armin Schulz, University of Kansas, Department of Philosophy
  • “Fighting the System: Non-Individualistic Conflicts of Interests”
• 10:15 Coffee Break
• 10:30 Catherine Herfeld, Leibniz University Hanover, Institute of Philosophy
  • “Model transfer and its challenges in science”
• 11:30 Karthik Panchanathan, University of Missouri, Department of Anthropology
  • “Shifting the level of selection in science”

Afternoon

• 2:00 Jessica Li, University of Kansas, School of Business
  • “Evolutionary perspectives on economics”
• 3:00 Break
• 3:15 Hannah Rubin, University of Missouri, Department of Philosophy
  • “Deception and punishment”
• 4:15 Coffee Break
• 4:30 Manus Patten, Georgetown University, Department of Biology
  • “The paradox of the organism: internal conflicts and the loss of individuality”

This workshop is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed at the workshop are those of the speakers and not those of the John Templeton Foundaiton.