Cailin O’Connor (UC Irvine): “The Emergence of Bargaining Inequity”

Abstract: If you ask someone to divide a pie between two imaginary recipients, they are likely to recommend a 50/50 split.  Philosophers like Brian Skyrms and Jason Alexander have employed evolutionary game theory to explain why such “fair” divisions are almost universally observed in experimental work, and to explain the ubiquity of stated norms of fairness in human societies.  When one moves away from an idealized lab setting, however, resource division is rarely governed by these stated norms.  In particular, distributive injustice seems to be the rule for many interactions between those in different social categories – men and women, for example, or white people and people of color.  In this talk, I use evolutionary game theory to show why unequal patterns of division often emerge between social groups.  In particular, I present new modeling work showing how the power of social groups can compound through the emergence of bargaining norms.

Cailin O’Connor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine. Her work has used formal tools to shed light on such diverse topics as vagueness, perceptual categorization, guilt, and bargaining between classes.

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