Shaun Nichols

About

Shaun Nichols is a Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Philosophy at Cornell University, working in the philosophy of cognitive science. His research concerns the psychological foundations of philosophical thought, with a recent focus on drawing on learning theory to understand how people acquire philosophically significant concepts and distinctions, especially in the domain of morality. His work aims to explore the cognitive processes underlying moral and philosophical understanding, contributing to the broader fields of moral psychology and cognitive science.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Epistemology
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Biology

Selected publications

• Rational Rules

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 59 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Moral systems, like normative systems more broadly, involve complex mental representations. <italic>Rational Rules</italic> offers an account of the acquisition of key aspects of normative systems in terms of general-purpose rational learning procedures. In particular, it offers statistical learning accounts of: (1) how people come to think that a rule is act-based, that is, the rule prohibits producing certain consequences but not allowing such consequences to occur or persist; (2) how people c…

  DOI

• Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024 · 43 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The fifth volume of Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy showcases the growing depth and breadth of the field. The essays here advance debates in several areas of experimental philosophy, including the measurement of beliefs about free will and moral objectivism, as well as methodological issues at the core of both experimental philosophy and philosophy more generally. This volume also includes work on new topics in experimental philosophy: attitudes about time, the auditory charac…

  DOI

• Teleological Essentialism: Generalized

  Cognitive Science · 2020 · 32 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Natural/social kind essentialism is the view that natural kind categories, both living and non-living natural kinds, as well as social kinds (e.g., race, gender), are essentialized. On this view, artifactual kinds are not essentialized. Our view-teleological essentialism-is that a broad range of categories are essentialized in terms of teleology, including artifacts. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments typically used to provide evidence of essentialist thinking-involving superficial change (…

  DOI

• “False positive” emotions, responsibility, and moral character

  Cognition · 2021 · 20 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Norms emerge through iterated learning

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-07-18 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Injunctive norms are universal: Every culture has rules that specify what actions are forbidden, obligatory, or permitted. Where do all of these norms come from? In this paper, we identify a mechanism of cultural transmission that can explain the emergence of injunctive norms. In particular, we develop an iterated learning account that shows how weak biases in pedagogy and inference can drive norm emergence through cultural transmission. Using transmission chain studies, we confirm the core pred…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Graeme M. Bydder

  Mātai Medical Research Institute

  338 shared

• Paul J. Cannon

  169 shared

• Ken P. Whittall

  University of British Columbia

  169 shared

• Kurt H. Bockhorst

  169 shared

• M. D. Smith

  169 shared

• Ashok Rakhit

  169 shared

• A Als

  Korea Institute for Advanced Study

  169 shared

• G. McGibney

  Traclabs (United States)

  169 shared

Awards & honors

• Neil Lubow Prize

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• Derk Pereboomh-34
• John M. Dorish-31
• Andrei Marmorh-26