We are delighted to announce that Jovy Chan has been selected as the winner of the 2025 David Savan Dissertation Prize for her thesis titled “Managing the Human Herd in a Digital World,” supervised by Joseph Heath. The selection committee described Jovy’s work as a “highly original dissertation [that] offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding group agency and collective decision-making in the context of social media.” “Drawing on insights from social epistemology, evolutionary psychology, and economic game theory,” its members went on to say, “Jovy offers novel solutions for managing the human herd in the digital world.”
An honorable mention went to Bowen Chan for his “The Spectrum of Virtue: From the Decent to the Excellent,” written under the supervision of Tom Hurka. “Bowen Chan’s excellent dissertation provides a compelling pluralist account of moral worth,” the adjudicators wrote. Continuing that “by arguing that moral worth varies according to different motives and comes in degrees, Bowen’s work promises to significantly contribute to contemporary moral theory.”
The prize is awarded in recognition of “the excellence of a doctoral thesis in philosophy submitted and successfully defended by a student in the Graduate Department.” The relevant criteria for the award include “originality, rigour, and good writing.”
Congratulations to Jovy, Bowen, and the numerous others who successfully defended their dissertations in the past year!
SHARE
