(5) Clay-Gilmore, M., Fryer, D., Peebles, I.S., et al., “Contemporary Issues in Black Philosophy: Pluralism in Methodological Approaches” American Philosophical Quarterly (accepted, awaiting DOI).
This essay introduces the special issue Contemporary Issues in Black Philosophy: Pluralism in Methodological Approaches and advances a metaphilosophical argument about method in Black philosophy. We distinguish the question of what makes philosophy Black from the question of what counts as philosophy, and argue that conflating these questions produces a misleading methodological monism. Attention to the difference between substance and method shows that methodological choice must be guided by the problems under investigation. We defend a disciplined pluralism according to which methods are justified by problem-fit rather than by allegiance to a single tradition.
(4) Peebles, I.S. "Is racism (necessarily) a moral wrong?" American Philosophical Quarterly (accepted, awaiting DOI).
Underlying the enterprise of constructing an adequate theory of racism is the methodological question of whether philosophers should prioritize political philosophical investigation or moral philosophical investigation in social criticisms of racism. This debate has led to the construction of competing desiderata for judging the adequacy of a theory of racism. In this paper, I argue that in many, perhaps most, circumstances we should prioritize moral philosophical investigation into racism because the concepts, methodologies, and evaluative language primarily associated with moral philosophy provide a more comprehensive investigation into racism than those primarily associated with political philosophy. An upshot of my argument is that, when taken seriously, it allows social critics to foreground individual responsibility without precluding criticism of structures.
(3) Hereth, B., de Boisboissel, G., Bricknell, M.C.M… Peebles, I.S., et al., “Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Performance Enhancement,” Science and Engineering Ethics (forthcoming). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-025-00546-z.
Horizon scanning is intended to identify opportunities and threats associated with technology, regulatory, and social change. Here, we report the results of a new horizon scan based on inputs of an international group of 33 participants, focusing on future issues arising from the military use of artificial intelligence (AI) for augmenting human performance. The final list of 12 issues includes topics spanning from the political (educating and training individuals to accept and work with AI), to the regulatory (issues of consent to human-AI teaming and hybridization), to security (the hackability of neural devices that connect to AI), to philosophical (the nature and phenomenology of brain-to-brain interfaces). The early identification of such issues is relevant to researchers, policymakers, military practitioners, and the wider public.
(2) Peebles, I.S. (2025). To race or not to race: A normative debate in the philosophy of race. Philosophers' Imprint 25(36). https://doi.org/10.3998/phimp.4295.
(1) Peebles, I.S. (2024). Toward a virtue-based account of racism. Philosophical Studies 181(10), 2499-2523. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02193-9. [Pre-print.]*
*Selected as one of the ten best articles in philosophy from 2024 by Philosopher’s Annual.
(2) Peebles, I.S., Kinney, D.B. and Foster-Hanson, E. (2024). Systematic decision frameworks for the socially responsible use of precision medicine. npj Genom. Med. 9(46). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41525-024-00433-9.
(1) Peebles, I.S., Phillips, T.O., and Hamilton, R.H. (2023). Toward more diverse, equitable, and inclusive neuromodulation. Brain Stimulation 16(3), 737-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2023.04.013.
Peebles, I.S. "Race, well-being, and (enhancements of) cognition," Neuroethics (conditional acceptance).
I argue that the current normative frameworks used to evaluate the use and distribution of neurointerventions for cognitive enhancement are inadequate. I offer an alternative theory - a perfectionist theory of well-being - as a superior framework.
Peebles, I.S. “Searching for peace of mind: Correcting against racial stigma in the age of neurotechnologies,” in The Ethics of Black Health (ed. Keisha Ray).
This chapter proceeds in three parts. The first part presents a brief overview of the history of racial stigma around mental health and cognitive capacities in the US. The second part argues that unless corrective measures are taken to alleviate such stigma, clinical care and medical research risks unjust uses and distributions of emerging neurotechnologies. The chapter closes by offering potential interventions to help secure a more just future in neurological and psychiatric care, including prioritizing social and environmental factors implicated in mental health and advocating for a more diverse workforce in neurology and psychiatry.
Peebles, I.S. and Spencer, Q. "Constructing conceptual frameworks to address racial health disparities" (under review).
We argue that the theories of race and racism that best enable us to solve the racial health disparities problem are a pluralist race theory and a virtue-based theory of racism.
Peebles, I.S. and Peabody-Smith, A. "From policy to practice: On the role of virtue in clinical care and medical research" (in progress).
We argue for a more robust integration of virtue ethics in biomedical ethics education and health policy to mitigate social ills commonly seen in clinical practice and medical research.
Title TBD
A multidisciplinary collaboration with the aim of critically analyzing stigmatization in the context of neurotechnology.