Research

My current research investigates the responsibilities of technology companies and what democracy demands from private and artificial agents. Most of my work is available in open-access repositories such as PhilPapers, ResearchGate, and SSRN.

AI & Democratic Legitimacy

A first stream of work examines the threats and opportunities that artificial intelligence poses for democratic legitimacy. It considers how AI can advance and undermine democratic values, as well as how power over AI should be fairly distributed. My initial findings will be published as a monograph with Polity Press, entitled Recoding Democracy: AI and the Fight for Our Democratic Future. A preview of one argument can be found here. It highlights how recent proposals to integrate AI into the democratic process rely on controversial assumptions about democracy’s value.

I’m continuing to develop some of these themes in subsequent work. I’ve also written on the concept of accountability in AI ethics and governance, which, despite its importance, remains poorly defined and understood, as well as on the epistemic and ethical challenges of countering disinformation with AI.

Responsibilities of Tech Companies

A second stream of work concerns the conditions under which technology companies have duties to police the sales and usage of their products. When can technology firms be complicit in the misuse or abuse of the products they sell? Conversely, when can efforts by technology firms to control sales and usage constitute abuses of power? One paper develops an operational framework in answer to these questions here. Another that provides the deeper philosophical foundations of this framework is currently under review.

Political Theory of Beneficence

A third stream of work addresses how benevolent economic practices, such as philanthropy, CSR, and social enterprise, can both support and undermine the realization of justice and political equality. I have written at length on philanthropy, such as here, here, and here, often showing how actions praiseworthy from the perspective of interpersonal morality become far more complicated from the perspective of political morality. A paper exploring the ethics of boycotting by corporations is here. A paper on the relationship between justice and social enterprises is here.

Political Philosophy and Applied Ethics

I maintain eclectic interests outside of these streams. I have published on the question of practice-dependence in theories of justice, i.e., the extent to which theories of justice should be constrained by facts about existing practices, a question which I have connected to debates in medieval political thought. I maintain interests in the justification of democracy, methods of ethical foresight analysis, the distinction between ideal and nonideal theory, the site and scope of distributive justice, and the institutional implications of theories of justice.