•  5
    Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern Philosophy (review) (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (1): 122-123. 2000.
    This is a review of a book by M.L. Miles.
  •  28
    Deepfakes and Political Misinformation in U.S. Elections
    Techné Research in Philosophy and Technology 27 (3): 363-386. 2023.
    Audio and video footage produced with the help of AI can show politicians doing discreditable things that they have not actually done. This is deepfaked material. Deepfakes are sometimes claimed to have special powers to harm the people depicted and their audiences—powers that more traditional forms of faked imagery and sound footage lack. According to some philosophers, deepfakes are particularly “believable,” and widely available technology will soon make deepfakes proliferate. I first give re…Read more
  •  4
    Hobbes and History (edited book)
    with G. A. John Rogers
    Routledge. 2000.
    Much of Thomas Hobbes's work can be read as historical commentary, taking up questions in the philosophy of history and the rhetorical possibilities of written history. This collection of scholarly essays explores the relation of Hobbes's work to history as a branch of learning.
  • Hobbes - Arg Phil
    Routledge. 2008.
    First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
  •  4
    Hobbes's peace dividend
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 38 (2): 137-154. 2021.
    Hobbes thinks that people who submit to government can not only hope for, but actually experience, something they recognize as a good life. The good life involves the exercise of harmless liberty—activity that the sovereign should not prohibit. The exchange of harmless liberty in the commonwealth for ruthless self-protection in the state of nature is what might be called Hobbes's peace dividend: the liberty of ordinary citizens to buy, sell, choose, and practice a trade as a source of income, an…Read more
  •  1
    Poverty, Exclusion and the Design of Microfinance Institutions
    In J. van der Hoeven, Thomas Pogge & Seumas Miller (eds.), Designing In Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 119-140. 2017.
    I shall consider the preferred design of micro-lending (microfinance) institutions in the poorest parts of the world, and also in richer jurisdictions where welfare state provision is shrinking. The institutions needed in these different contexts are, unsurprisingly, different, and part of their design involves interacting with institutions that are not primarily designed to reduce poverty. I shall assume that design considerations also extend to exploiting opportunities thrown up by globally si…Read more
  •  64
    Policing with big data: Matching vs Crime Prediction
    In Kevin Macnish & Jai Galliott (eds.), Big Data and Democracy, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 57-70. 2020.
    In this chapter I defend the construction of inclusive, tightly governed DNA databases, as long as police can access them only for the prosecution of the most serious crimes or less serious but very high-volume offences. I deny that that the ethics of collecting and using these data sets the pattern for other kinds of policing by big data, notably predictive policing. DNA databases are primarily used for matching newly gathered biometric data with stored data. After considering and disputing a n…Read more
  • The World from its Own Point of View
    In Alan Malachowski (ed.), Reading Rorty, Blackwell. pp. 1-25. 1990.
    In this chapter, I begin by taking issue with Rorty over what is involved in the idea of the world's intrinsic nature; then I ask whether it really is advisable to dispense with higher entities and, in Rorty's phrase 'dedivinize culture." I shall suggest that Rorty caricatures the ideas he seeks to discredit and that, in particular, he gives us no very compelling reason to dispense with the idea of the world's intrinsic nature. Turning from the bad onld divinity-worshipping philosophy, science a…Read more
  • Idealism, realism and Rorty's pragmatism without method
    In Paul Coates & Daniel Hutto (eds.), Current Issues in Idealism, Thoemmes. pp. 1-22. 1996.
    Rorty maintains that idealism and realism are dead ends and that somewhere beyond them is a better philosophy--a special kind of pragmatism--without the pretensions or illusions of what it supersedes. Unfortunately, the view of philosophy that Rorty puts forward is neither independently attractive nor easy to understand as a wholesome middle way between idealism and realism. In some ways it is hard to recognise as a view of philosophy at all. I argue for something closer to Thomas Nagel's view o…Read more
  •  95
    Bulk Collection, Intrusion and Domination
    In Andrew I. Cohen (ed.), Philosophy and Public Policy, Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 39-61. 2018.
    Bulk collection involves the mining of large data sets containing personal data, often for a security purpose. In 2013, Edward Snowden exposed large scale bulk collection on the part of the US National Security Agency as part of a secret counter-terrorism effort. This effort has mainly been criticised for its invasion of privacy. I argue that the right moral argument against it is not so much to do with intrusion, as ineffectiveness for its official purpose and the lack of oversight by security …Read more
  •  130
    Privacy, Bulk Collection and "Operational Utility"
    In Seumas Miller, Mitt Regan & Patrick Walsh (eds.), National Security Intelligence and Ethics, Routledge. pp. 141-155. 2021.
    In earlier work, I have expressed scepticism about privacy-based criticisms of bulk collection for counter-terrorism ( Sorell 2018 ). But even if these criticisms are accepted, is bulk collection nonetheless legitimate on balance – because of its operational utility for the security services, and the overriding importance of the purposes that the security services serve? David Anderson’s report of the Bulk Powers review in the United Kingdom suggests as much, provided bulk collection complies wi…Read more
  •  5
    Hobbes
    In Nicholas Bunnin & E. P. Tsui‐James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, Blackwell. 2002.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Hobbes's Politics Human Nature and the State of War The Laws of Nature and the Rationale for the State The Obligations of Subjects and the Rights of Sovereigns Strengths and Weaknesses of Hobbes's Politics The Rest of Hobbes's Philosophy.
  •  3
    Hobbes on Sovereignty and Its Strains
    In Marcus P. Adams (ed.), A Companion to Hobbes, Wiley. 2021.
    Hobbes' theory of sovereignty is in three parts. One is concerned with the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths. Another is concerned with the rights of properly established sovereigns, where the rights in question remedy the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths. The third part consists of a statement of the duties of sovereigns: constraints on the proper exercise of sovereign rights. Even when the rights of sovereigns are exercised properly, sovereignty is fragile. This is because t…Read more
  • Descartes
    In W. H. Newton‐Smith (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. 2017.
    Descartes has an unofficial, as well as an official, philosophy of science. The unofficial philosophy of science can be detected in his letters, in some of the essays that he presented as specimens of his method in 1637, in the closing pages of the Discourse on Method itself, in parts of the Principles of Philosophy, and in his physics treatise, The World. The official philosophy of science is to be found elsewhere: in the Meditations, for example, and in Parts 2 and 4 of the Discourse. There ar…Read more
  •  1
    Thomas Hobbes
    In Steven Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, Blackwell. 2002.
    This chapter contains section titled: Three Contributions to Science The New Optics The New Science of Natural Justice All of Science Taught from the Elements.
  •  3
    The Insurance Market and Discriminatory Practices
    In Justine Burley & John Harris (eds.), A Companion to Genethics, Blackwell. 2004.
    Reviews issues in the ethics of access to health insurance based on health problems due to genetic inheritance.
  • Descartes (review)
    Philosophical Books 28 (4): 209-211. 1987.
    This is a review of a book by John Cottingham
  •  6
    The Scope of Serious Crime and Preventive Justice
    Criminal Justice Ethics 35 (3): 163-182. 2016.
    I first offer an account of serious crime that goes beyond victimizing crimes committed by individuals against other individuals. This approach extends the well-known framework offered by von Hirsch and Jareborg that relates seriousness of crime to different standards of living that can be enjoyed by victims of crime as the result of crime. The revised account of serious crime is then related to the idea of preventing serious crime by the introduction of offences consisting of steps in the prepa…Read more
  • Introduction
    with Christopher Cowton and James Dempsey
    In Christopher Cowton & James Dempsey (eds.), Business Ethics After the Global Financial Crisis: Lessons From the Crash, Routledge. 2019.
  • Bankers have been slow to claim responsibility or apologise for the seismic damage of the 2008 financial crisis. How is this shortcoming to be spelled out? One possibility is by saying that the bankers failed to display what Susan Wolff calls "the nameless virtue" --the disposition to take responsibility for untoward events that occur in one's area of influence, even if we did not intend them or directly cause them. I think this diagnosis is unduly generous to leaders of banks at the centre of t…Read more
  •  11
    Cobots, “co-operation” and the replacement of human skill
    Ethics and Information Technology 24 (4): 1-12. 2022.
    Automation does not always replace human labour altogether: there is an intermediate stage of human co-existence with machines, including robots, in a production process. Cobots are robots designed to participate at close quarters with humans in such a process. I shall discuss the possible role of cobots in facilitating the eventual total elimination of human operators from production in which co-bots are initially involved. This issue is complicated by another: cobots are often introduced to wo…Read more
  •  18
    Hobbes's Peace Dividend
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 38 (2): 137-154. 2021.
    Hobbes thinks that people who submit to government can not only hope for, but actually experience, something they recognize as a good life. The good life involves the exercise of harmless liberty—activity that the sovereign should not prohibit. The exchange of harmless liberty in the commonwealth for ruthless self-protection in the state of nature is what might be called Hobbes's peace dividend: the liberty of ordinary citizens to buy, sell, choose, and practice a trade as a source of income, an…Read more
  •  8
    Ethical issues in computational pathology
    with Nasir Rajpoot and Clare Verrill
    Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (4): 278-284. 2022.
    This paper explores ethical issues raised by whole slide image-based computational pathology. After briefly giving examples drawn from some recent literature of advances in this field, we consider some ethical problems it might be thought to pose. These arise from the tension between artificial intelligence research—with its hunger for more and more data—and the default preference in data ethics and data protection law for the minimisation of personal data collection and processing; the fact tha…Read more
  •  331
    Violations of privacy and law : The case of Stalking
    with John Guelke
    Law, Ethics and Philosophy 4 32-60. 2016.
    This paper seeks to identify the distinctive moral wrong of stalking and argues that this wrong is serious enough to criminalize. We draw on psychological literature about stalking, distinguishing types of stalkers, their pathologies, and victims. The victimology is the basis for claims about what is wrong with stalking. Close attention to the experiences of victims often reveals an obsessive preoccupation with the stalker and what he will do next. The kind of harm this does is best understood i…Read more
  •  11
    Commentary on Jecker
    Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (1): 36-36. 2021.
    Jecker’s paper focuses on the value of sex and sexuality in the lives of older people, and she argues that there is nothing wrong with the use of sex robots to realise that value. She concedes that sex robots marketed today are overwhelmingly designed for heterosexual males, and that their appearance corresponds to certain objectionable stereotypes of sexually attractive women, and of exciting sexual practices. Still, she says, sex robots do not have to be like that, and a less stereotype-ridden…Read more
  • This chapter examines the role of experience in Thomas Hobbes’ science of politics. Although Hobbes claims for his own formulation of civil philosophy a kind of definitiveness and certainty that only geometry has among the sciences, and although both geometry and civil philosophy are supposed to be the products of reason, where reason excludes experience (sense and memory), the necessity of establishing and submitting to the commonwealth is open to a certain sort of confirmation from experience.…Read more
  •  11
    Scambaiting on the Spectrum of Digilantism
    Criminal Justice Ethics 38 (3): 153-175. 2019.
    Digilantism is punishment through online exposure of supposed wrongdoing. Paedophile hunting is one example, and the practice is open to many of the classical objections to vigilantism. But it lies...
  •  29
    Ethical and social challenges with developing automated methods to detect and warn potential victims of mass-marketing fraud
    with Monica T. Whitty, Michael Edwards, M. Levi, C. Peersman, A. Rashid, A. Sasse, and G. Stringhini
    Mass-marketing frauds are on the increase. Given the amount of monies lost and the psychological impact of MMFs there is an urgent need to develop new and effective methods to prevent more of these crimes. This paper reports the early planning of automated methods our interdisciplinary team are developing to prevent and detect MMF. Importantly, the paper presents the ethical and social constraints involved in such a model and suggests concerns others might also consider when developing automated…Read more
  •  1
    `Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this boo…Read more