Agnes profile

Agnes Tam

PhD
Pronouns: she/her

Positions

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy

Director, Canadian Philosophy Association

~ Other ~

Contact information

Email

agnes.tam@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

personal website

PhilPeople

Phone number

Office: +1 (403) 220-4344

Location

Office: Social Sciences Building 1210

Background

Educational Background

LLB Law, University of Hong Kong , 2010

MSc Political Theory , London School of Economics and Political Science , 2013

PhD Philosophy, Queen's University, 2020

Full CV (Updated Jul 2024)

Biography

The overarching goal of my research is to restore a proper place for "us" or community in liberal democracy. I believe the liberal tradition tends to misunderstand the nature of the plural subject "we", exaggerate the risks "we" present, and undervalue "our" contributions to a good society. My past project seeks to correct the (European) Enlightenment narrative and shows that, far from obstructing moral progress, the conformist and parochial tendencies of "we"-reasoning facilitate moral progress. My new SSHRC-funded project "Toward Narrative Democracy" aims to address the ongoing crisis of belonging in the age of heightened migration. It seeks to reimagine the bond of society not as a rational contract but as an artful narrative, and to develop a new ethics of joint narration to tell inclusive stories of who "we" are. My empirically-informed work on We-reasoning has been published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Analysis, Analyse & Kritik, and through Oxford University Press and Routledge. I am the lead author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "Progress". I'm committed to doing transdisciplinary research and making philosophy accessible and responsive to the world. I am the Co-Convenor of the transdisciplinary working group "Ethics and Politics of Narrative" at Calgary Institute for the Humanities. I regularly give public lectures.

Research

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Human dynamics in a changing world

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
Phil 347 Contemporary Moral Problems Fall 2024
Phil 249 Morality, Virtue, and Society Winter 2025
Phil5/653 Narrative Politics Winter 2025
Phil 5/653 Tribalism Fall 2024
Phil 5/653 Social justice and change Winter 2023
Phil 347 Contemporary Moral Problems Fall 2022

Projects

Toward Narrative Democracy: a New Ethical Model of Inclusive Belonging

My new project "Toward Narrative Democracy" is supported by the 2024-26 SSHRC Insight Development Grant. In the age of heightened migration, many societies are grappling with a crisis of belonging. Not only do immigrants and minorities feel alienated from their community, but even the majority feels disoriented in their homeland. What’s the missing social glue? Many philosophers have argued that the cement of a society is a social contract, and that deliberative democracy can help define the right terms. In this project, I challenge this conventional view. I argue instead that the social glue is the bond of history. Further, I develop a new normative model of democracy, called "Narrative Democracy," to tell and contest artful and inclusive stories of who we are as a society. 


 

 

 

Moral Progress and Reasoning

In this project, I explore the underestimated role of we-thinking in facilitating moral progress. I investigate the distinctly collective logic of social norms and narratives that govern and shape communities and how individualistic and rational mode of reasoning fails to destabilize them.

Awards

  • Banting Postdoctoral Fellow , SSHRC/McGill University . 2021
  • Applied Ethics Resident Fellowship, Calgary Institute for the Humanities. 2023

Publications