Simon Fitzpatrick

Background

Simon Fitzpatrick earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2006 and then took up a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Sheffield, affiliated with the AHRC Culture and The Mind Project. Fitzpatrick joined the Department of Philosophy at John Carroll University in 2009. Now Associate Professor of Philosophy, Fitzpatrick is Chair of the Department of Philosophy and also Chair of the JCU Faculty Handbook Committee. Fitzpatrick specializes in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, philosophy of science, and animal ethics.

Areas of Expertise

• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science
• Animal Cognition
• Animal Ethics
• Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

Research Interests

I am a philosopher of science with a focus on philosophy of mind and cognitive science, especially nonhuman animal cognition and the cognitive science of morality. My work lies at the interface of philosophy and science, focusing on conceptual, epistemic, and methodological issues that arise in debates about the cognitive capacities of animals, the evolution of morality, and the psychological capacities that underlie moral and normative thinking and agency. Recently, I have also explored ethical and policy implications of findings in these fields, particularly with respect to questions of animal welfare, conservation, and moral standing. In addition to these core research areas, I have long-standing interests in general philosophy of science, especially the debate over scientific realism and the role of considerations of simplicity/parsimony (Ockham’s Razor) in scientific theory evaluation, and in the history of psychology, especially the late-19th century psychologist, Conwy Lloyd Morgan.

Education

• University of Sheffield, UK / Ph.D in Philosophy, 2002 - 2006. Dissertation: Simplicity, Science, and Mind
• University of Nottingham, UK / MA in Philosophy, 2000 - 2001
• University of Nottingham, UK / BA in Philosophy & Economics, 1997 - 2000

Courses Taught

• PL2041: Philosophy of Science
• PL2042: Human, Nonhuman, & Artificial Intelligence (Philosophy of Mind)
• PL3000: Methods in Philosophy
• PL4000: Animal Minds Seminar (upper-division course for majors)
• PL2096: Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (Linked with PS2310)

Publications

• Fitzpatrick, Simon & Andrews, Kristin (forthcoming). Animal cultures matter for conservation, but also to animals. Learning & Behavior.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2025). Mindshaping in nonhuman great apes. In Tad Zawidzki & Rémi Tison (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Mindshaping. Routledge.
• Andrews, Kristin, Fitzpatrick, Simon, & Westra, Evan (co-equal first authorship) (2024). Human and animal norms: A dimensional framework. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Science 379: 20230026. Special issue on norm change.
• Westra, Evan, Fitzpatrick, Simon, Brosnan, Sarah, Gruber, Thibaud, Hobaiter, Catherine, Hopper, Lydia, Kelly, Daniel, Krupenye, Christopher, Luncz, Lydia, Theriault, Jordan, and Andrews, Kristin (joint lead author with Westra and Andrews). In search of animal normativity: A framework for studying social norms in non-human animals. Biological Reviews 99 (3): 1058-1074.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon & Andrews, Kristin (2022). Animal culture and animal welfare. Philosophy of Science 89 (5): 1104-1113.
• Curtin, Cameron M., Barrett, H. Clark, Bolyanatz, Alexander, Crittenden, Alyssa N., Fessler, Daniel, Fitzpatrick, Simon, Gurven, Michael, Kanovsky, Martin, Laurence, Stephen, Pisor, Anne, Scelza, Brooke, Stich, Stephen, von Rueden, Chris, & Henrich, Joseph (2020). Kinship intensity and the use of mental states in moral judgment across societies. Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (5): 414-429.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2020). Chimpanzee normativity: Evidence and objections. Biology and Philosophy 35 (4): 1-28.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2020). Avoiding anthropocentrism in evolutionarily inclusive ethics. Animal Sentience 5 (29).
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2020). Re-framing the debate over animal morality. EurSafe Newsletter 22 (1): 3-6.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon & Goodrich, Grant (2017). Building a science of animal minds: Lloyd Morgan, experimentation, and Morgan’s Canon. Journal of the History of Biology 50 (3): 525-569.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2017). Animal morality: What is the debate about? Biology and Philosophy 32 (6): 1151-1183.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2017). Against Morgan's Canon. In Kristin Andrews & Jacob Beck (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds. Routledge. pp. 437-447.
• Barrett, H. Clark, Bolyanatz, Alexander, Crittenden, Alyssa N., Fessler, Daniel M. T., Fitzpatrick, Simon, Gurven, Michael, Henrich, Joseph, Kanovsky, Martin, Kushnick, Geoff, Pisor, Anne, Scelza, Brooke A., Stich, Stephen, von Rueden, Chris, Zhao, Wanying, & Laurence, Stephen (2016). Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (17): 4688–4693.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2015). Nativism, empiricism, and Ockham’s Razor. Erkenntnis 80 (5): 895-922.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2014). Distinguishing between three versions of the Doctrine of Double Effect Hypothesis in moral psychology. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (4): 505-525.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2014). Moral realism, moral disagreement, and moral psychology. Philosophical Papers 43 (2):161-190.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2013). Simplicity in the philosophy of science. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://iep.utm.edu/simplici/
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2013). Kelly on Ockham’s Razor and truth-finding efficiency. Philosophy of Science 80 (2): 298-309.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2013). Doing away with the No Miracles Argument. In Dennis Dieks & Vassilios Karakostas (eds.), Recent Progress in Philosophy of Science: Perspectives and Foundational Problems. Springer.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2009). The primate mindreading controversy : A case study in simplicity and methodology in animal psychology. In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds. Cambridge University Press. pp. 224-246.
• Fitzpatrick, Simon (2008). Doing away with Morgan’s Canon. Mind & Language 23 (2): 224–246.