I'm Will Wilkinson, a Policy Analyst at
the Cato Institute in Washington,
D.C., where I work on an array of issues, from Social Security to the policy implications of happiness research.
Until November 2003, I was Academic Coordinator of the Social Change
Project and the Global Prosperity Initiative at The Mercatus Center at
George Mason University. For three years I ran the Social
Change Workshop for
Graduate Students for The Institute
for Humane Studies, where I was also a
Program Director involved in academic programs.
I
graduated in 1995 from the University of
Northern Iowa with a B.A. in the Humanities (Philosophy and History
of Art) and in Studio Art (Painting), and again in 1998 from Northern
Illinois University with an M.A. in Philosophy. For about six years, on and off, I was a Ph.D. student in
Philosophy at the
University of Maryland, where my emphasis was philosophy of mind
and language and then, later, political philosophy.
My areas of philosophical
interest as I write are metaethics, political philosophy, the philosophy of the social
sciences, the cognitive
sciences, and evolutionary psychology. I am especially interested in
contractarian moral and political theory, the
nature of moral progress, and the relation of findings in the cognitive
sciences to the theory of rational choice. My historical interests
include, inter alia, Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, Reid, Hume,
Nietzsche,
and Sidgwick. My contemporary-ish philosophical influences include W.V.
Quine, Friedrich Hayek, David Armstrong, Robert Nozick, James Buchanan, David Gauthier, and John Rawls.
I have
a longstanding interest in libertarianpolitical
theory, especially the development of libertarian conceptions
of equality and positive liberty. Because I am not an economist, I
opportunistically (yet honestly) consider public policy analysis
to be applied political philosophy (which is why economists are not
necessarily good at it.) I am particularly interested in both
private and state alternatives to the traditional "welfare" programs,
the justification of middle class entitlement programs, identifying
what is and is not legitimately troubling about various forms of
inequality, the measurement of social and economic progress (and
the political consequences of the state's adoption of techniques of
measurement).
I was born in Independence, Missouri in 1973. I grew up happily in Marshalltown, Iowa. My father, James Wilkinson, now retired from his duties as Chief of the Council Bluffs, Iowa police department, resides with my step-mom, Pat, in Omaha. My mother, Dorothy Wilkinson, died in 1989. She was a nurse. I have two sisters, Suzanne and Jennifer, who live in the vicinity of Kansas City, Missouri. My grandmother, Jessie Graffeo, of Independence, Missouri, is especially dear to me.
I live in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC, near Howard University. I enjoy poetry, drawing, singing, dancing, public speaking, literature, movie and museum-going, and vigorous exercise.
My goal is to have an interesting and happy life.