Isaac Taylor

About me

I am an associate senior lecturer in practical philosophy. I joined the Department in 2020, having previously held postdoctoral positions at Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Colorado Boulder. Before moving to Stockholm, I was a Research Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London, where I worked with UK public sector organistaions in investigating the ethical issues surrounding emerging military technologies. I hold a DPhil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford.

My research is in moral and political philosophy. I currently have two projects. First, I am investigating the ways in which the use of AI might undermine responsibility and democratic governance, and what we can do about this. Second, I am conducting an interdisciplinary project, with Elisabeth Forster at the University of Southampton, about how just war theory was institutionalized during the twentieth century. Engaging with history, ethics, metaethics, and international relations, we will draw broader lessons for the methodology of philosophy.

Publications

Book

The Ethics of Counterterrorism (New York: Routledge, 2018)

Journal Articles

'Is Explainable AI Responsible AI?' AI & Society, advance online article, 2024

'Collective Responsibility and Artificial Intelligence', Philosophy & Technology, 2024, 37: 27

'Justice by Algorithm: The Limits of AI in Criminal Sentencing', Criminal Justice Ethics 42(3), 2023, pp.193-213

'Making Peace with the Devil: The Problem of Ending Just Wars' (with Elisabeth Forster), Journal of Social & Political Philosophy, 2(2), 2023, pp.121-137

'Asking the Fox to Guard the Chicken Coop: In Defense of Minimalism in the Ethics of War and Peace' (with Elisabeth Forster), Journal of International Political Theory 18(1), 2022, pp.91-109

'The Responsibility to Protect from Terror: The Ethics of Foreign Counterterrorist Interventions', Global Responsibilty to Protect 14(2), 2022, pp.155-177

'Who is Responsible for Killer Robots? Autonomous Weapons, Group Agency, and the Military-Industrial Complex', Journal of Applied Philosophy 38(1), 2021, pp.320-334

'Political Obligations and Public Goods', Res Publica 27(4), 2021, pp.559-575

'Privatising War: Assessing the Decision to Hire Private Military Contractors', Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 21(2), 2018, pp.148-168

'Robust Harms', Moral Philosophy & Politics 5(1), 2018, pp.69-86

'Data Collection, Counterterrorism, and the Right to Privacy', Politics, Philosophy & Economics 16(3), 2017, pp.326-346

'Just War Theory and the Military Response to Terrorism', Social Theory & Practice 43(4), 2017, pp.717-740

'State Responsibility and Counterterrorism', Ethics & Global Politics 9(1), 2016, pp.1-19

'Communication, Efficiency, and Fairness in the European Union', Public Affairs Quarterly 30(2), 2016, pp.129-147

'Language as a Global Public Good', Res Publica 20(4), 2014, pp.377-394

'Practices, Institutions, and Global Public Good Regimes', Raisons Politiques 51, 2013, pp.121-135

Other Publications

'Responsibility for What? Reply to Wood', Philosophy & Technology, 2024, 37: 36

'Ethics of Counterterrorism', Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge: 2022)

'Public Goods' (with David Miller) in Serena Olsaretti (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)

'Debating Refuge and Asylum', co-edited special issue of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric 11(1), 2018 (with Yasemin Sari)