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PPE Speaker Series: “The Employment Tax on Agency and Managerial Gaslighting” with Dan Singer (University of Pennsylvania)

March 3 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Join us on Monday, March 3 from 6:30-7:45pm in Caldwell 105 for our PPE Speaker Series!

 

Abstract: In the current information economy, knowledge workers are vital for organizational innovation and competitiveness, and because of this, they often command wages orders of magnitude higher than manual workers. Yet, organizations often systematically undermine knowledge workers’ creative and epistemic agency in their everyday work, leading to a puzzle: Why would firms pay so much for knowledge workers’ expertise just to undermine that expertise in their work? To answer this question, I’ll argue that we should change our conception of what employment involves. Doing so also reveals a kind of ‘managerial gaslighting’ that firms regularly use to undermine their employees. While seemingly counterproductive, I’ll show why this kind of gaslighting is sometimes permissible and often necessary for effective business operations.

 

There will be Q&A and pizza after the talk! This event is free and open to the public.


Daniel J. Singer is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and he co-directs the Computational Social Philosophy Lab with Patrick Grim. His research is about two questions in epistemology and metaethics: how and why epistemic norms apply to us, and how epistemic norms change when we look at groups rather than individuals. He investigates both questions using traditional philosophical methods as well as using agent-based computer simulations. His digital humanities research uses agent-based computer simulations to explore how groups of people act as agents, and in particular, how groups deliberate and come to have views about the world. He also uses agent-based computer simulations to investigate questions related questions in political philosophy, social epistemology, and philosophy of science.

Details

Date:
March 3
Time:
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Venue

Caldwell 105