Eric Silverman

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate on the role of model-based approaches in the future demography. First we call attention to the developments of the discipline since the XVIIth century, and we describe its four successive paradigms related to the period, cohort, event-history and mutilevel perspectives. We argue that these paradigms are complementary and that demography, since its beginnings, has suscribed to the classical scientific research programme launched by the promotors of modern science. Next, we examine how simulation modelling developing in population science recently, may help to respond to three main challenges: how to overcome complexity in social research, how to reduce the uncertainty, and how to reinforce its theoretical fundations. We sketch a model-based research programme for demography, looking specifically at interactions between various population systems. We then show how this approach might conform to the classical scientific research programme, in order to take advantages of its benefits.

We argue that the good of a meaningful life has a role in theodicy by serving as a contributory reason for an all-good, all-powerful God to allow the existence of evil. If a meaningful life is a more valuable good than competing goods such as pleasure, power, etc., then the good of a meaningful life could have some theodical value for explaining a world where personal pleasure and power are often threatened and undermined. Thus, a world including deeply meaningful personal lives along with the existence of evils like pain and suffering, could be superior to a world without pain and evil but with less meaningful lives. This view is especially plausible if our argument successfully demonstrates that certain kinds of evils are necessary conditions for certain kinds of more valuable, more meaningful lives.

Having discussed the current state-of-the-art in modelling for the social sciences, we will begin to delve more deeply into the modelling frameworks discussed thus far. Both Alife and social science simulation will be studied using these modelling frameworks, which will allow us to examine the limitations of these approaches to modelling. We will then attempt to develop a framework for social science modelling, taking into account the needs of the discipline and the strengths and weaknesses of agent-based modelling in this context.

This chapter will summarise the insights gained from our analysis so far, incorporating the examples and case studies presented in Part III. We will examine the advances derived from these models, and their impact on the field of demography and its approach to modelling and simulation. Having taken stock of the state of model-based demography, we will discuss how this methodological paradigm might influence efforts to establish simulation as a powerful tool for the broader social science community.

In this chapter we examine an agent-based model of social care costs in the context of an ageing population. The model brings together statistical demographic modelling with a spatial agent-based model including a rudimentary economic model. Agents undergo the core demographic processes of fertility, mortality, and migration, and as they age they may develop varying levels of social care need. Building on the example presented in the previous chapter, this model increases the complexity of agent behaviours to allow for a more nuanced examination of the drivers of care demand and supply amongst an ageing populace. The results demonstrate that alongside the expected outcomes of social care cost rising as the population ages, the age of retirement has an unexpected impact on cost due to the size of the care burden being shouldered by healthy spouses of ill agents.

In this chapter we will examine one influential modelling project in detail: the residential segregation model by Schelling. This model has been a seminal example of abstract social modelling since its inception; our analysis will discuss the development of the model itself as well as its subsequent effect on the field and on modelling more generally. We will then examine Schelling’s simple yet powerful model in the light of the modelling frameworks we have developed to this point, and use the insights gained to further enhance these ideas.

In Part I, our analysis of modelling focused primarily on the field of artificial life and population biology. In Part II, we will begin to investigate the application of agent-based modelling to the social sciences. This chapter will describe the current status of agent-based social science research, outlining some of the most influential work in this developing field. We will then investigate the methodological difficulties faced by modellers in this area, as well as the philosophical implications of an agent-based approach to the study of human social systems.

In this conclusion to Part II, we bring together our methodological analysis of Alife, population biology and the social sciences and develop a comprehensive summary of the issues facing simulation modellers and how they may be managed. These ideas will be put into context using our bird migration example and incorporate ideas drawn from our analysis of Schelling’s residential segregation model. We will then discuss the further considerations needed to put these ideas into practice, and in the process lay the groundwork for Part III.

Modern demography, while growing increasingly interdisciplinary over years, has largely remained a data-focused discipline. Demographic research often proceeds under the premises of logical empiricism, in which data is the primary focus on theoretical development or innovation receive far less emphasis. In this chapter, we will investigate some demographic models which have used agent-based approaches successfully to produce useful insight. We will discuss their methods and results in detail, and outline how these models have used simulation to push us closer to a model-based demography.

This chapter takes our previous discussion of simulation in Artificial Life and places it into the broader context of population biology, which can be viewed as an earlier progenitor of Alife. Population biologists frequently use mathematical models to investigate the behaviour of animal populations, drawing from a similar methodological toolbox as that used by demographers, and in doing so have grappled with the difficulties inherent in modelling complex creatures and behaviours with only systems of equations. Scientists in this discipline have developed some intriguing theoretical frameworks for the use of such models and for describing their limitations, and here we see how these ideas can inform our own quest for a useful framework for computational models.

Game of Thrones is a popular, award-winning television series with an eight-season run on Home Box Office, based on the Song of Fire and Ice series of books by George R.R. Martin. It depicts a morally complex political situation in a fantasy environment that has some similarities to medieval Europe. In the midst of this setting, the series advocates a cynical attitude towards politics, social structures, and religion. Most notably, the series suggests that there is no such thing as political legitimacy. This chapter identifies a pattern of cynicism throughout Game of Thrones but points towards the thoughts of John Locke and Thomas Aquinas as possible alternatives to the story’s cynicism.

Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven systematically investigates heaven, or paradise, as conceived within theistic religious traditions such as Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It considers a variety of topics concerning what life in paradise would, could, or will be like for human persons. The collection offers novel approaches to questions about heaven of perennial philosophical interest, and breaks new ground by expanding the range of questions about heaven that philosophers have considered. The contributors wrestle with questions about human life in paradise that span the spectrum of the major subfields of philosophical enquiry. By employing both historical and contemporary philosophical resources, the volume makes a pioneering contribution toward answering pressing questions about human life in paradise. It will serve as a platform for future research, reinvigorating philosophical investigation into these neglected topics within philosophy of religion.

Aristotle's theory of moral character focuses on developing virtues, the deep internal dispositional traits from which external actions naturally flow. Aristotle describes moral virtue as a human excellence that can be developed through practice. The morally worst person is the vicious person who does the wrong thing, desires the wrong thing, and doesn't even know the right thing to do—perhaps even mistaking the wrong thing to do for the right thing. This was the sort of person Eleanor was when she entered The Good Place. One objection to the possibility of moral development is called situationism: the claim that people don't really live according to moral character but are overwhelmingly shaped by the situations around them. As Eleanor learns in The Good Place, the road to being a better person starts with caring about those close to us.

A recurring theme within Robert Solomon’s writings concerns the central importance of the passions. His high regard for the passions even motivates him to challenge the traditional understanding of virtue. Solomon rejects the Aristotelian view that virtues are dispositions of character developed according to rational principles rather than passions. He offers the counter-example of erotic love as a passion that is not based upon rationality, which he argues ought to be viewed as a virtue. This paper argues that while Solomon’s account of love can accommodate the traditional Aristotelian motivations for rejecting passions as virtues, there are compelling reasons for preferring the Aristotelian account of virtue. Ultimately, Solomon’s argument relies upon an implausible view of the passions and offers inferior resources for examining love in terms of virtue.

This collection features essays from top experts in ethics and philosophy of love that offer varying perspectives on the value of a contemporary secular virtue of chastity. The virtue of chastity has traditionally been portrayed as an excellent personal disposition concerning the ideal ordering of sexual desire such that the person desires that which is actually good for both the self and others affected by his or her sexual desires and actions. Yet, for roughly the past half century chastity has been increasingly portrayed as an unnecessary ideal with few secular benefits that could not be otherwise obtained. Instead, chastity is sometimes portrayed as an odd kind of religious asceticism with few secular benefits. The essays in this volume ask whether there may be advantages to reconsidering a contemporary virtue of chastity. A recovered and reconceptualized concept of chastity can offer partial solutions to problems associated with externalized sexual desire, including sweeping patterns of sexual harassment, the high divorce/relationship-failure rate, and widespread pornography use. Sexual Ethics in a Secular Age will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in the philosophy of sex and love, virtue ethics, and philosophical accounts of secularity.

This open access book examines the methodological complications of using complexity science concepts within the social science domain. The opening chapters take the reader on a tour through the development of simulation methodologies in the fields of artificial life and population biology, then demonstrates the growing popularity and relevance of these methods in the social sciences. Following an in-depth analysis of the potential impact of these methods on social science and social theory, the text provides substantive examples of the application of agent-based models in the field of demography. This work offers a unique combination of applied simulation work and substantive, in-depth philosophical analysis, and as such has potential appeal for specialist social scientists, complex systems scientists, and philosophers of science interested in the methodology of simulation and the practice of interdisciplinary computing research.​

John Hick attempts to justify evil’s existence by claiming it is necessary for the process of “soul-making,” which allows for the development of a more valuable type of moral character than a world without evil. Hick’s theodicy has ramifications for ethics as well as philosophy of religion. His theodicy commits him to a conception of virtue theory that significantly departs from the ethical theories held by many theists. An explication of Hick’s ethical theory and comparison with relevant aspects of Thomas Aquinas’s ethical theory showshow Hick’s ethical theory makes this departure. At stake in this paper is whether Hick’s ethical theory and account of the virtue of love make his theodicy less plausible.