I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Philosophy of the Université du Québec à Montréal. I hold a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Université libre de Bruxelles (supervisor: Jean-Marc Ferry, 2007) where I have been a research follow at the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (2004-2008).
My dissertation delt with the nature of cooperation and the emergence of social hierarchies in humans. More precisely, it aimed at explaining why humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years in small egalitarian foraging bands and why the emergence of large-scale societies during the Neolithic was accompanied everywhere by increased social differentiation and, eventually, the centralization of political power. An improved version of my dissertation, entitled Human evolution and the origins of hierarchies: The state of nature, has been accepted for publication at Cambridge University Press.
My current research is centered on moral philosophy and philosophy of science. A part of my work deals with the cognitive and evolutionary foundations of normativity and morality, while another is focused on epistemological and methodological issues in philosophy of biology, cognitive science, and social science. I am affiliated with the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire sur la normativité (GRIN), as well as with the Interuniversity Research Center on Science and Technology (CIRST).
Besides my research activities, I am also interested in learning foreign languages (Russian, German, Dutch) and in the politics of Quebec and Canada. I have created with Jean-François Lisée the website PolitiquesSociales.net that presents information about social policy in about fifteen countries of Europe and America. Most of my inspiration comes from my girlfriend Marie-Pierre, our daughter Camille and our son Eugène.
