Darian Meacham appointed Professor of Practical Philosophy

Commenting on the appointment, Darian notes: “if we look at very important spheres of life like work, health care, education, security, we can see how the tools that we build also shape the basic concepts that we use to describe and orient our social and political lives. I am thinking about ideas like autonomy, community, solidarity, democracy and even very philosophical ideas like intelligence, mind and subject. But we’re not passive bystanders in these dynamics, we can try to map, understand and intervene in them in ways that try to preserve or promote the things that we care about. 

The use of algorithmic decision support systems or robots in the workplace is one good example of this. We need to think carefully not just about the economic considerations, are there enough jobs? Are they well-paying jobs? But also, how are these technologies changing the ways that we work, is it better or worse for the workers, their families, their communities? And, what are the broader social and political implications down the line? Many if not most of the fundamental rights that we have in democratic societies were gained through workers leveraging their power to withdraw from or disrupt economic processes, how will new technologies change this? 

Philosophers can’t just have these conversations by themselves. It’s important that we talk to engineers, lawyers, social scientists as well policy makers and industry. If you are dealing with questions of work, for example, you can’t do that in isolation from the voices of workers themselves. I place a lot of importance on collaboration across disciplines and interacting with the people and institutions that are experiencing those phenomena that I am trying to think and write about. This is really supported at FASoS, and at UM more broadly, which is great.”

Darian was born and raised in Boston, USA. He studied philosophy at McGill University in Montreal and then at the University of Leuven, where he received his doctorate for a PhD thesis on political phenomenology. He worked for seven years in the United Kingdom, before coming to Maastricht in 2016. He is currently Chair of the Philosophy Department, Principle Investigator for Ethics and Responsible Innovation at BISS, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology and works on several Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects including STRONG-AYA and Circular City Challenge. 

You can check out his latest article here: A Plea for (In)Human-centred AI | Philosophy & Technology (springer.com)