Jack Wright

• Wright, Jack (2025). The Value of Independence between Experts: Epistemic Autonomy and Different Perspectives. Episteme: A journal of individual and social epistemology. ISSN 1742-3600. 22(4), p. 834–834. doi: 10.1017/epi.2024.20. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract I offer two interpretations of independence between experts: (i) independence as deciding autonomously, and (ii) independence as having different perspectives. I argue that when experts are grouped together, independence of both kinds is valuable for the same reason: they reduce the likelihood of erroneous consensus by enabling a greater variety of critical viewpoints. In offering this argument, I show that a purported proof from Finnur Dellsén that groups of more autonomous experts are more reliable does not work. It relies on a flawed ceteris paribus assumption, as well as a false equivalence between autonomy and probabilistic independence. A purely formal proof that more autonomous experts are more reliable is in fact not possible – substantive claims about how more autonomous groups reason are required. My alternative argument for the value of autonomy between experts rests on the claim that groups that triangulate a greater range of critical viewpoints will be less likely to accept hypotheses in error. As well as clarifying what makes autonomy between experts valuable, this mechanism of critical triangulation, gives us reason to value groups of experts that cover a wide range of relevant skills and knowledge. This justifies my second interpretation of expert independence.

• Wright, Jack (2024). The hierarchy in economics and its implications. Economics and Philosophy. ISSN 0266-2671. 40(2), p. 278–278. doi: 10.1017/s0266267123000032. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper argues for two propositions. (I) Large asymmetries of power, status and influence exist between economists. These asymmetries constitute a hierarchy that is steeper than it could be and steeper than hierarchies in other disciplines. (II) This situation has potentially significant epistemic consequences. I collect data on the social organization of economics to show (I). I then argue that the hierarchy in economics heightens conservative selection biases, restricts criticism between economists and disincentivizes the development of novel research. These factors together constrain economics’ capacity to develop new beliefs and reduce the likelihood that its outputs will be true.

• Wright, Jack (2021). Are economists self-perceptions as epistemically superior self-defeating? In Kincaid, Harold & Ross, Don (Ed.), A Modern Guide to Philosophy of Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781788974455. p. 127–145. doi: 10.4337/9781788974462.00011. Full text in Research Archive
• Alexandrova, Anna; Northcott, Robert & Wright, Jack (2021). Back to the big picture. Journal of Economic Methodology. ISSN 1350-178X. 28(1), p. 59–59. doi: 10.1080/1350178x.2020.1868772. Full text in Research Archive
• Worsdale, Rosie & Wright, Jack (2021). My objectivity is better than yours: contextualising debates about gender inequality. Synthese. ISSN 0039-7857. 199(1-2), p. 1683–1683. doi: 10.1007/s11229-020-02835-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Absract In this paper, we contribute to a growing literature in the philosophy of social science cautioning social scientists against context-independent claims to objectivity, by analyzing the recent proposal of a new Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) by Gijsbert Stoet and David Geary. Despite the many internal problems with BIGI, Stoet and Geary have had some success in positioning the index as an important corrective to the way in which gender inequality is measured in mainstream metrics like the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). We argue that this success is facilitated at least in part by the failure of GGGI’s proponents to adequately justify the methodological choices underpinning the index in relation to the context in which the index’s findings are intended to be used. In so doing, the authors of GGGI oversell the objectivity of the metric’s assessment of the state of global gender inequality—and it is this overselling that allows Stoet and Geary to present BIGI as a metric that corrects what they claim are systematic biases within GGGI. The case of BIGI and GGGI, we argue, suggests that the kind of epistemic modesty exhibited by recent operational approaches to objectivity is particularly important for social research on highly politically contested topics.

• Wright, Jack & Mata, Tiago (2020). Epistemic Consultants and the Regulation of Policy Knowledge in the Obama Administration. Minerva. ISSN 0026-4695. 58(4), p. 558–558. doi: 10.1007/s11024-020-09411-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract The agencies of the government of the United States of America, such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency, intervene in American society through the collection, processing, and diffusion of information. The Presidency of Barack Obama was notable for updating and redesigning the US government’s information infrastructure. The White House enhanced mass consultation through open government and big data initiatives to evaluate policy effectiveness, and it launched new ways of communicating with the citizenry. In this essay we argue that these programs spelled out an emergent epistemology based on two assumptions: dispersed knowledge and a critique of judgment. These programs have redefined the evidence required to justify and design regulatory policy and conferred authority to a new kind of expert, which we call epistemic consultants.

• Wright, Jack (2018). Rescuing Objectivity: A Contextualist Proposal. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. ISSN 0048-3931. 48(4), p. 406–406. doi: 10.1177/0048393118767089. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Ascriptions of objectivity carry significant weight. But they can also cause confusion because wildly different ideas of what it means to be objective are common. Faced with this, some philosophers have argued that objectivity should be eliminated. I will argue, against one such position, that objectivity can be useful even though it is plural. I will then propose a contextualist approach for dealing with objectivity as a way of rescuing what is useful about objectivity while acknowledging its plurality.

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• Wright, Jack & Goddard, Jessica J. (2023). Pluralism. In Haddad, Brent M. & Solomon, Barry D. (Ed.), Dictionary of Ecological Economics. Terms for the New Millennium. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781788974905. p. 407–407. doi: 10.4337/9781788974912.p.22. Full text in Research Archive
• Goddard, Jessica J. & Wright, Jack (2023). Methodological pluralism. In Haddad, Brent M. & Solomon, Barry D. (Ed.), Dictionary of Ecological Economics. Terms for the New Millennium. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781788974905. p. 350–350. doi: 10.4337/9781788974912.m.43. Full text in Research Archive
• Wright, Jack (2023). Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be, Diane Coyle. Princeton University Press, 2021, 257 pages. Economics and Philosophy. ISSN 0266-2671. 39(2), p. 338–338. doi: 10.1017/s0266267122000359. Full text in Research Archive
• Wright, Jack (2021). Emily Herring, Kevin Matthew Jones, Konstantin S. Kiprijanov and Laura M. Sellers (eds), The Past, Present, and Future of Integrated History and Philosophy of Science. Œconomia – Histoire/Epistémologie/Philosophie. ISSN 2113-5207. 11-4, p. 730–730. doi: 10.4000/oeconomia.11897. Full text in Research Archive
• Wright, Jack (2019). Pluralism and social epistemology in economics. University of Cambridge. doi: 10.17863/CAM.37650. Full text in Research Archive

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