PHD Position

A fully funded research position for work at the intersection of moral philosophy, conceptual engineering, and the ethics of emerging technologies.

Candidates are invited to submit their own research proposals engaging questions in moral philosophy, conceptual engineering, and the ethics of emerging technologies.

Possible topics for proposals include, but are not limited to:

• How emerging technologies challenge moral, legal, and political concepts and how those concepts should be revised
• What makes human control over autonomous or AI-driven systems genuinely meaningful and how that should shape design
• Understanding and responding to gaps in responsibility or control created by autonomous systems
• Designing and governing autonomous systems in public contexts in democratically legitimate ways
• When, if ever, it is morally justified for predictive systems used by public authorities to expose some citizens to greater investigative or sanction risks
• Conditions under which universities should use generative AI and how that affects power relations in institutional contexts

Innovative and thought-provoking research proposals engaging these or related topics at the intersection of these areas are encouraged.

We are looking for candidates who have finished, or are close to finishing, a Master’s degree in philosophy and who have substantial prior training in philosophy; typically this means a Bachelor’s and Master’s in philosophy or a two-year Master’s program entirely devoted to philosophy.

• Strong motivation for pursuing a PhD and demonstrable time management and organisational skills
• Demonstrable capacity to cooperate in an academic research environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English

Employment conditions and benefits include:

• End-of-year bonus and holiday allowance
• Extensive opportunities for personal and professional development
• Temporary full-time employment for a period of four years
• Flexibility to adjust working hours in agreement with the employer, allowing trade-offs between working time and free hours

The appointment is within a Faculty of Philosophy at a research university known for interdisciplinary research and teaching, collaboration with business, government, and societal organisations, and an open academic community.

The Faculty of Philosophy is a small-scale faculty with an informal working culture, valuing both fundamental and applied research and often working in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary settings.

The faculty is organised into three departments: Theoretical Philosophy, History of Philosophy and Ethics, and Social and Political Philosophy. The position is offered within the Department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy.