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A.E. JAQUES

RESEARCH

My current research is primarily in the ethics and politics of technology. Some of my work constitutes a methodological intervention: I argue that much theorizing in this area is misguidedly individualist in its approach, and I identify a fallacious mode of inference in surprisingly common use in certain areas that are significant for justice. Other projects engage with old technical/programming puzzles and show how they are products of deeper philosophical issues—recognition of which can make them sometimes more tractable and sometimes less. Either way, understanding the philosophical underpinnings suggests a more promising approach to addressing these issues both for practitioners and for policymakers. 

​My thesis research concerned the connection between knowledge and action. I argued that we should think about that connection by considering the nature of intentional action: doing so reveals that the constitutive aim of intentional action is control, and that the control in question is just practical knowledge, in Anscombe's sense. There is, then, a knowledge norm for intentional action—and one with interesting epistemological, metaethical, and social/political upshots, which I explored.

My theoretical commitments entail that I am supposed to know what I am doing. This is rather worrying.

SELECTED PAPERS & TALKS

How could anyone trust AI?
IEEE Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, November 2019

Why the moral machine is a monster
Winner: Best Paper by a Junior Scholar
​University of Miami Law School: We Robot Conference, April 2019

The future of AI: ethical dimensions
AI World, December 2018

When artificial agents are just following orders
Harvard Kennedy School, October 2018

On Bruce Schneier's Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and survival in a hyperconnected world
Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School, September 2018

Forget moral machines. Build a justice engine.
MIT Media Lab, September 2018

Like, God, get a grip
University of Wisconsin, Madison: Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop (MadMeta), September 2017

Broken laws
University of Edinburgh: Edinburgh Legal Theory Festival, Workshop on Law & Metaphysics, June 2017

Casual slaughters and purposes mistook
University of Colorado, Boulder: Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress (RoME), August 2016
​University of Birmingham (UK): The New Methods of Ethics Conference, September 2016

Comments on Hallie Liberto's "Exploitation and the role of consent"
University of British Columbia: Vancouver Summer Philosophy Conference (VSPC), August 2016

Illicit oomph (a worry for expressivists)
Uppsala University: Workshop on the Language and Metaphysics of Normativity, May 2016

Authority, morality, legality: the Goldilocks problem for moral positivism
University of Edinburgh: Legal Theory Seminar Series, March 2016

Between a rock and a hard case
MIT: MITing of the Minds conference, January 2015

Comments on A.R. Greene's "Political legitimacy and the value of consent"
Princeton University: Mentoring and Networking Workshop for Graduate Student Women in Philosophy, August 2014

If you'd like to know more about my work, please contact me!
The image on this page shows a portion of Teresita Fernandez's work 'As Above So Below,' exhibited at MASS MoCA in 2014. Photo by me.
All content © 2016-2019 A. E. Jaques
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