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282Persons or datapoints?: Ethics, artificial intelligence, and the participatory turn in mental health researchAmerican Psychologist 79 (1): 137-149. 2024.This article identifies and examines a tension in mental health researchers’ growing enthusiasm for the use of computational tools powered by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Although there is increasing recognition of the value of participatory methods in science generally and in mental health research specifically, many AI/ML approaches, fueled by an ever-growing number of sensors collecting multimodal data, risk further distancing participants from research pr…Read more
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220“Large Language Models” Do Much More than Just Language: Some Bioethical Implications of Multi-Modal AIAmerican Journal of Bioethics 23 (10): 110-113. 2023.Cohen (2023) takes a fair and measured approach to the question of what ChatGPT means for bioethics. The hype cycles around AI often obscure the fact that ethicists have developed robust frameworks...
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134Why Canada’s Artificial Intelligence and Data Act Needs “Mental Data”American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2): 101-103. 2023.By introducing the concept of “mental data,” Palermos (2023) highlights an underappreciated aspect of data ethics that policymakers would do well to heed. Sweeping artificial intelligence (AI) legi...
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867Malleable character: organizational behavior meets virtue ethics and situationismPhilosophical Studies 179 (12): 3535-3563. 2022.This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their memb…Read more
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98Experimental Philosophical Bioethics of Personal IdentityIn Kevin Tobia (ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Identity and the Self, Bloomsbury. pp. 183-202. 2022.The question of what makes someone the same person through time and change has long been a preoccupation of philosophers. In recent years, the question of what makes ordinary or lay people judge that someone is—or isn’t—the same person has caught the interest of experimental psychologists. These latter, empirically oriented researchers have sought to understand the cognitive processes and eliciting factors that shape ordinary people’s judgments about personal identity and the self. Still more re…Read more
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313Mind the Gaps: Ethical and Epistemic Issues in the Digital Mental Health Response to Covid‐19Hastings Center Report 51 (6): 23-26. 2021.Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, proponents of digital psychiatry were touting the promise of various digital tools and techniques to revolutionize mental healthcare. As social distancing and its knock-on effects have strained existing mental health infrastructures, calls have grown louder for implementing various digital mental health solutions at scale. Decisions made today will shape the future of mental healthcare for the foreseeable future. We argue that bioethicists are uniquely position…Read more
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2147From human resources to human rights: Impact assessments for hiring algorithmsEthics and Information Technology 23 (4): 611-623. 2021.Over the years, companies have adopted hiring algorithms because they promise wider job candidate pools, lower recruitment costs and less human bias. Despite these promises, they also bring perils. Using them can inflict unintentional harms on individual human rights. These include the five human rights to work, equality and nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression and free association. Despite the human rights harms of hiring algorithms, the AI ethics literature has predominantly focused on …Read more
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388Me, my (moral) self, and IIn Felipe de Brigard & Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (eds.), Neuroscience and philosophy, The Mit Press. pp. 111-138. 2022.In this chapter, we outline the interdisciplinary contributions that philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience have provided in the understanding of the self and identity, focusing on one specific line of burgeoning research: the importance of morality to perceptions of self and identity. Of course, this rather limited focus will exclude much of what psychologists and neuroscientists take to be important to the study of self and identity (that plethora of self-hyphenated terms seen in psychology …Read more
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1515Is There an App for That?: Ethical Issues in the Digital Mental Health Response to COVID-19American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 13 (3): 177-190. 2022.As COVID-19 spread, clinicians warned of mental illness epidemics within the coronavirus pandemic. Funding for digital mental health is surging and researchers are calling for widespread adoption to address the mental health sequalae of COVID-19. We consider whether these technologies improve mental health outcomes and whether they exacerbate existing health inequalities laid bare by the pandemic. We argue the evidence for efficacy is weak and the likelihood of increasing inequalities is high. …Read more
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340How AI can AID bioethicsJournal of Practical Ethics. forthcoming.This paper explores some ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to improve human moral judgments in bioethics by avoiding some of the most common sources of error in moral judgment, including ignorance, confusion, and bias. It surveys three existing proposals for building human morality into AI: Top-down, bottom-up, and hybrid approaches. Then it proposes a multi-step, hybrid method, using the example of kidney allocations for transplants as a test case. The paper concludes wit…Read more
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464What Counts as “Clinical Data” in Machine Learning Healthcare Applications?American Journal of Bioethics 20 (11): 27-30. 2020.Peer commentary on Char, Abràmoff & Feudtner (2020) target article: "Identifying Ethical Considerations for Machine Learning Healthcare Applications"
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511Why We Never Eat Alone: The Overlooked Role of Microbes and Partners in Obesity Debates in BioethicsJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (3): 435-448. 2020.Debates about obesity in bioethics tend to unfold in predictable epicycles between individual choices and behaviours and the oppressive socio-economic structures constraining them. Here, we argue that recent work from two cutting-edge research programmes in microbiology and social psychology can advance this conceptual stalemate in the literature. We begin in section 1 by discussing two promising lines of obesity research involving the human microbiome and relationship partners. Then, in section…Read more
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1026Where are virtues?Philosophical Studies 176 (9): 2331-2349. 2019.This paper argues that the question, ‘where are virtues?’ demands a response from virtue theorists. Despite the polarizing nature of debates about the relevance of empirical work in psychology for virtue theory, I first show that there is widespread agreement about the underlying structure of virtue. Namely, that virtues are comprised of cognitive and affective processes. Next, I show that there are well-developed arguments that cognitive processes can extend beyond the agent. Then, I show that …Read more
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865Ethical Issues in Text Mining for Mental HealthIn M. Dehghani & R. Boyd (ed.), The Atlas of Language Analysis in Psychology, . forthcoming.A recent systematic review of Machine Learning (ML) approaches to health data, containing over 100 studies, found that the most investigated problem was mental health (Yin et al., 2019). Relatedly, recent estimates suggest that between 165,000 and 325,000 health and wellness apps are now commercially available, with over 10,000 of those designed specifically for mental health (Carlo et al., 2019). In light of these trends, the present chapter has three aims: (1) provide an informative overview o…Read more
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303Partisanship, Humility, and Epistemic PolarizationIn Michael Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini (eds.), Arrogance and Polarization (. pp. 175-192. forthcoming.Much of the literature from political psychology has focused on the negative traits that are positively associated with affective polarization—e.g., animus, arrogance, distrust, hostility, and outrage. Not as much attention has been focused on the positive traits that might be negatively associated with polarization. For instance, given that people who are intellectually humble display greater openness and less hostility towards conflicting viewpoints (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; Hopkin et al…Read more
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394AI Methods in BioethicsAmerican Journal of Bioethics: Empirical Bioethics 1 (11): 37-39. 2020.Commentary about the role of AI in bioethics for the 10th anniversary issue of AJOB: Empirical Bioethics
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736Some ethics of deep brain stimulationIn Dan Stein & Ilina Singh (eds.), Global Mental Health and Neuroethics, . pp. 117-132. 2020.Case reports about patients undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for various motor and psychiatric disorders - including Parkinson’s Disease, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Treatment Resistant Depression - have sparked a vast literature in neuroethics. Questions about whether and how DBS changes the self have been at the fore. The present chapter brings these neuroethical debates into conversation with recent research in moral psychology. We begin in Section 1 by reviewing the recent clin…Read more
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650The Moral Self and Moral DutiesPhilosophical Psychology (7): 1-22. 2020.Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, “what makes a person the same over time?” as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, following Strohminger & Nichols (2014), has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of…Read more
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559Addiction, Identity, MoralityAJOB Empirical Bioethics 10 (2): 136-153. 2019.Background: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a ‘brain disease’ versus ‘moral weakness’ model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g., the ability to abstain from substance use). Much less work, however, has been conducted on the relationship between addiction and judgments about an agent’s identity, including whether or to what extent an individual …Read more
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488Relational Agency: Yes—But How Far? Vulnerability and the Moral SelfAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 8 (2): 83-85. 2017.Peer commentary on: Goering, S., Klein, E., Dougherty, D. D., & Widge, A. S. (2017). Staying in the loop: Relational agency and identity in next-generation DBS for psychiatry. AJOB Neuroscience, 8(2), 59-70.
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761Bioethics and the Hypothesis of Extended HealthKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 28 (3): 341-376. 2018.Dominant views about the nature of health and disease in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine have presumed the existence of a fixed, stable, individual organism as the bearer of health and disease states, and as such, the appropriate target of medical therapy and ethical concern. However, recent developments in microbial biology, neuroscience, the philosophy of cognitive science, and social and personality psychology (Ickes...
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459Chris Abel. The Extended Self: Architecture, Memes and Minds (review)Environmental Philosophy 14 (1): 151-153. 2017.Review of: Abel, C. (2014). The extended self: Architecture, memes and minds. Manchester University Press
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463Jane Addams as experimental philosopherBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (5): 918-938. 2018.This paper argues that the activist, feminist and pragmatist Jane Addams was an experimental philosopher. To defend this claim, I argue for capacious notions of both philosophical pragmatism and experimental philosophy. I begin in Section 2 with a new defence of Rose and Danks’ [‘In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy’. Metaphilosophy 44, no. 4 : 512–32] argument in favour of a broad conception of experimental philosophy. Koopman [‘Pragmatist Resources for Experimental Philo…Read more
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852The Embedded and Extended Character HypothesesIn Julian Kiverstein (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Social Mind, Routledge. pp. 465-478. 2016.This paper brings together two erstwhile distinct strands of philosophical inquiry: the extended mind hypothesis and the situationist challenge to virtue theory. According to proponents of the extended mind hypothesis, the vehicles of at least some mental states (beliefs, desires, emotions) are not located solely within the confines of the nervous system (central or peripheral) or even the skin of the agent whose states they are. When external props, tools, and other systems are suitably integ…Read more
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1002Lessons and new directions for extended cognition from social and personality psychologyPhilosophical Psychology 30 (4): 458-480. 2017.This paper aims to expand the range of empirical work relevant to the extended cognition debates. First, I trace the historical development of the person-situation debate in social and personality psychology and the extended cognition debate in the philosophy of mind. Next, I highlight some instructive similarities between the two and consider possible objections to my comparison. I then argue that the resolution of the person-situation debate in terms of interactionism lends support for an anal…Read more
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480Toward an Ecological BioethicsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 16 (5): 35-37. 2016.Peer commentary on: Blumenthal-Barby, J. S. (2016). Biases and heuristics in decision making and their impact on autonomy. The American Journal of Bioethics, 16(5), 5-15.
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925Extended knowledge, the recognition heuristic, and epistemic injusticeIn Duncan Pritchard, Jesper Kallestrup, Orestis Palermos & Adam Carter (eds.), Extended Knowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 239-256. 2018.We argue that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. First, we explain the recognition heuristic as studied by Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to, and outside the control of, the cognitive agent. We then connect the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, arguing that the recogniti…Read more
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375Beyond Embodiment: John Dewey and the Integrated MindThe Pluralist 8 (3): 66-78. 2013.In 1916 John Dewey expressed a worry that American philosophy would be relegated to “chewing a historic cud long since reduced to a woody fibre, or an apologetics for lost causes (lost to natural science).”1 In this paper, I will attempt to contribute to a growing body of literature within the classical American philosophical tradition that seeks to avoid this fate by engaging Dewey’s thought with debates in contemporary philosophy of mind.2 To date, the vast majority of this work has centered a…Read more
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559Implications for virtue epistemology from psychological science: Intelligence as an interactionist virtueIn Heather Battaly (ed.), Handbook of Virtue Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 433-445. 2018.This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological resea…Read more
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319Pragmatism, Embodiment, and ExtensionIn Matthias Jung & Roman Madzia (eds.), Pragmatism and Embodied Cognitive Science: From Bodily Intersubjectivity to Symbolic Articulation, De Gruyter. pp. 35-56. 2016.Abstract: While pragmatism and the so-called 4E program may form a united front against methodological individualism, classical cognitivism, traditional internalism, and the like, the 4E approach is not without its own internal tensions. One such tension, between Embodied and Extended, is brought to light by Clark (2008), who argues in favor of the latter. Dempsey and Shani (2013) reply that Clark’s functionalism undercuts what should be a more fundamental commitment to Embodied. With respect to…Read more
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University of GuelphDepartment of Philosophy
Centre for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (CARE-AI)
One Health InstituteAssociate Professor
Guelph, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Moral Psychology |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
2 more
Biomedical Ethics |
Technology Ethics |
Neuroethics |
Virtue Ethics |
Pragmatism |
Feminist Philosophy |
Epistemology |