Computable Rationality, NUTS, and the Nuclear Leviathan

This paper explores how the Leviathan that projects power through nuclear arms exercises a unique nuclearized sovereignty. In the case of nuclear superpowers, this sovereignty extends to wielding the power to destroy human civilization as we know it across the globe. Nuclearized sovereignty depends on a hybrid form of power encompassing human decision-makers in a hierarchical chain of command, and all of the technical and computerized functions necessary to maintain command and control at every moment of the sovereign's existence: this sovereign power cannot sleep. This article analyzes how the form of rationality that informs this hybrid exercise of power historically developed to be computable. By definition, computable rationality must be able to function without any intelligible grasp of the context or the comprehensive significance of decision-making outcomes. Thus, maintaining nuclearized sovereignty necessarily must be able to execute momentous life and death decisions without the type of sentience we usually associate with ethical individual and collective decisions

Imagining empathy: counterfactual methods and the US-Iran security dilemma

The overall contribution of this thesis is to develop a conceptualisation of empathy for the security dilemma, and to empirically explore this conceptualisation through a counterfactual case study of US foreign policy towards Iran, 2001-2010. It achieves this in three stages. First, it shows how the concept of empathy has long been implicitly central to security dilemma theorising. In particular, it demonstrates that security dilemma theorists have drawn upon implicit and unspecified notions of empathy in order to answer the crucial question of how security dilemma dynamics between adversaries can be overcome. Second, it addresses this omission by developing a conceptualisation of empathy that speaks to the unique context of the security dilemma. In mediating between different understandings of empathy across a number of literatures, the thesis proposes a conceptualisation that emphasises the importance of reflexivity and notions of difference. And third, it uses an innovative counterfactual methodology to empirically map the dynamics of empathy onto US foreign policy towards Iran. In doing so the thesis shows how empathy can promote cooperation between adversaries in some instances, but can be inhibited by broader contextual factors in others

Foundations of Trusted Autonomy

Trusted Autonomy; Automation Technology; Autonomous Systems; Self-Governance; Trusted Autonomous Systems; Design of Algorithms and Methodologie

PSA 2018

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018

PSA 2018

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018

PSA 2018

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018

PSA 2016

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2016

PSA 2018

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018