Ron Aboodi (PhD)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Aboodi, R. (Forthcoming). AI-Assisted Maximization of Expected ChoiceWorthiness under Moral Uncertainty. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Proceedings of the AISoLA 2025 track "Responsible and Trusted AI"). [Open Access]  Click here for the most recent draft.

This article features an illustrative dialogue between a human user and a hypothetical Artificial Moral Consultant—hereafter AMC—powered by AI. This AMC specializes in maximizing expected choiceworthiness under nor-mative uncertainty. The justifiability of this procedure has been disputed, partly in light of two philosophical threats: infinite metanormative regress and the problem of intertheoretic value comparison. The dialogue provides a detailed, careful, and richly contextualized illustration that helps to establish more conclusively that justifiable implementation of this procedure is possible in particular types of epistemic cases. Furthermore, the dialogue suggests that a specialized AMC, if technologically feasible, could render maximizing expected choiceworthiness justifiably more practically viable under normative uncertainty. A secondary aim of this dialogue is to illustrate how AMCs could strike a good balance between respecting the user's wishes and stances on the one hand, and cultivating the user's critical thinking, challenging the user to consider additional possibilities, questions, facts, views, etc. on the other hand.

Aboodi, R. (2025). Inauthentic Value Shifts Induced by AI Decision–Support? A WEIRD Concern. Philosophy & Technology 38:159. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-025-00981-7. [Open Access]

This response paper challenges the following views: (1) the view that inauthentic value shifts should be treated as a design risk of AI powered decision-support systems, independently of manipulation, causing epistemic shortcoming, and other known problems; (2) the view that such decision-support systems should be designed to adapt to the values of the user or her community; and (3) the view that propogating certain values characteristic of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries is morally problematic. Burdening designers and regulators with unnecessary worries risks diverting attention and resources from genuine relevant concerns such as the preservation and cultivation of human critical thinking.

Aboodi, R. (2025). The Worrisome Potential of Outsourcing Critical Thinking to Artificial Intelligence. Educational Theory 75:4, pp. 626-645.  https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.70037 [Open Access] 

As AI keeps advancing, generation Alpha and future generations are more likely to cope with situations that call for critical thinking by turning to an artificial consultant, and relying on its guidance without sufficient critical thinking. I defend this worry and argue that it calls for educational reforms that would be mainly designed to (a) motivate students to think critically about AI applications and the justifiability of their deployment, and (b) cultivate the skills, knowledge and dispositions that will help them do so. Furthermore, I argue that these educational aims would remain important in the distant future no matter how far AI would advance; even merely on outcome–based grounds (without appealing to the final value of autonomy, or authenticity, or understanding, etc.; or to any educational ideal that dictates the cultivation of critical thinking regardless of its instrumental value). For any artificial consultant that might emerge in the future, even with a perfect track record, it is highly improbable that we could ever justifiably rule out—or assign negligible probability to—the scenario that (a) it will mislead us in certain high-stakes situations, and/or that (b) human critical thinking could help reach better conclusions and prevent significantly bad outcomes.  

Aboodi, R. (2024). Critical Thinking, Thin Ideals, and Irreducibly Normative Deliberation. Philosophy of Education  80:4, pp.17-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.47925/80.4.017  [Open Access] 

Here I argue that there's a pro tanto reason to include within education for critical thinking the cultivation of thin normative ideals (such as "doing what's right" or "acting in accordance with what ultimately matters") as one of the motivations to think critically. I explain the important (motivational and regulatory) role of such ideals in deliberation concerning irreducible normative practical questions, and suggest that such deliberation is instrumentally necessary in order to cultivate them properly.

[Click here for a response by Harry Brighouse ] 

Aboodi, R. (2024). Characterizing and Countering Organized Social Indoctrination. Philosophy of Education 80:1, pp. 79-83. https://doi.org/10.47925/80.1.079 [Open Access]  
(Unlike the rest of my publications listed here, this one was invited and not anonymously reviewed.)

This response paper constructs the concept of organized social indoctrination on the basis of Fedor Korochkin's work (in a manner that facilitates future research on the subject and serves other pragmatic purposes), argues for its importance, and adds a proposal about countering organized social indoctrination.

Aboodi, R. and Cohen, S. (2023). Manipulation, Disrespecting Autonomy, and Deliberative Projects. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 13,  pp. 31-54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198895909.003.0003 

This chapter helps to illuminate the practical meaning of respecting a person’s autonomy, by focusing on manipulation. Many instances of manipulation are intuitively morally worrisome in virtue of disrespecting the manipulee’s autonomy. On the basis of such normative intuitions, this chapter argues that “the manipulee’s autonomy” here can be understood as the manipulee’s “deliberative project:” her interrelated ongoing efforts to manage her conduct by committing and adhering to normative stances, ideals, policies, plans, goals, and the like. The significance of this precisification comes out in comparison to various alternatives. For example, it may be argued that some manipulations disrespect the manipulee’s autonomy merely due to diminishing the manipulee’s rationality. But this chapter suggests that the relevance of rationality in a particular type of situation depends on the extent to which being rational is important from the manipulee’s perspective, in light of the manipulee’s particular deliberative project. So diminishing the manipulee’s rationality is not necessarily disrespectful toward the manipulee's autonomy. 

Aboodi, R. (2023). Character Education under Normative Uncertainty. Eyunim Bechinuch 22, pp. 20-35 (Hebrew) [Open Access] 

This paper argues that educators' justified normative uncertainty generates a pro tanto reason to cultivate particular character qualities (including a thin normative ideal such as "acting morally" and the ability to think critically), which prepare students for new normative understandings whose content we do not foresee. 

Aboodi, R. (2022). Normative Uncertainty without Unjustified Value Comparisons: A Response to Carr.Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21:3. https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v21i3.1492 [Open Access] 

Abstract: Jennifer Rose Carr’s (2020) article “Normative Uncertainty Without Theories” proposes a method to maximize expected value under normative uncertainty without Intertheoretic Value Comparison (hereafter IVC). Carr argues that this method avoids IVC because it avoids theories: the agent’s credence is distributed among normative hypotheses of a particular type, which don’t constitute theories. However, I argue that Carr’s method doesn’t avoid or help to solve what I consider as the justificatory problem of IVC, which isn’t specific to comparing theories as such. This threatens the implementability of Carr’s method. Fortunately, I also show how Carr’s method can nevertheless be implemented. I identify a type of epistemic states where the justificatory problem of IVC is not a necessary obstacle to maximizing expected value. In such states, the uncertainty stems from indecisive normative intuitions, and the agent justifiably constructs each normative hypothesis on the basis of a consistent subset of her intuitions by reference to the same unit of value. This part of my argument complements not only Carr’s (2020) argument, but also some moderate defenses of IVC. The combination of Carr’s paper and mine helps to illuminate the conditions for maximizing expected value under normative uncertainty without unjustified value comparison.

Aboodi, R. (2021). What’s Wrong with Manipulation in Education? Philosophy of Education 77:2, pp. 66-80 https://doi.org/10.47925/77.2.066 [Open Access] 

A teacher controls the release of materials in attempt to get students to appreciate the appeal of a popular yet wrongheaded argument before exposing them to its shortcomings. An instructor uses body language, tone of voice, and images in a Power-Point presentation that appeal to non-deliberative mechanisms in order to influence the students to pay more attention, maintain their focus, or to remember the content better. How do we draw the line between such innocuous educational practices and problematic manipulation, such as deterring students from questioning certain views by instilling fear or shame? I help answering this question by illuminating one significant danger, which hasn’t been accurately identified in the relevant literature: the danger that manipulations in education—even when they’re non-deceptive and aim for the good of the students—will hinder the development or fulfillment of the students’ deliberative projects.

[Click here for a response by John Tillson ] 

Aboodi, R. (2017). One Thought Too Few: Where De Dicto Moral Motivation is Necessary, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20:2, pp. 223-237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9742-5 

De dicto moral motivation is typically characterized by the agent’s conceiving of her goal in thin normative terms such as to do what is right. I argue that lacking an effective de dicto moral motivation (at least in a certain broad sense of this term) would put the agent in a bad position for responding in the morally-best manner (relative to her epistemic state) in a certain type of situations. Two central features of the relevant type of situations are (1) the appropriateness of the agent’s uncertainty concerning her underived moral values, and (2) the practical, moral importance of resolving this uncertainty. I argue that in some situations that are marked by these two features the most virtuous response is deciding to conduct a deep moral inquiry for a de dicto moral purpose. In such situations lacking de dicto moral motivation would amount to a moral shortcoming. I show the implications for Michael Smith’s (1994) argument against Motivational Judgment Externalism and for Brian Weatherson’s (2014) argument against avoiding moral recklessness: both arguments rely on a depreciating view of de dicto moral motivation, and both fail; or so I argue.

Please quote only from the published version, available for free viewing at:  http://rdcu.be/mOUK

Or for download at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-016-9742-5

Aboodi, R. (2015). The Wrong Time to Aim at What’s Right: When is De Dicto Moral Motivation Less Virtuous? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115:3, pp. 307-314. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2015.00396.x

I argue that there are (only) two contingent factors that can render an instantiation of de dicto moral motivation — which is typically characterised by the agent’s conceiving of her goal in moral terms such as doing what’s right — less virtuous than some alternative motivation that would lead to the same (right) action: (1) The circumstances are such that it would be more virtuous to be moved directly by certain non-deliberative dispositions (such as an emotional attachment to one’s spouse), and (2) The circumstances are such that de dicto moral motivation has practical disadvantages (such as generating unnecessary moral reflections that waste precious time).

 Aboodi, R. Borer, A. and Enoch, D. (2008). Deontology, Individualism, and Uncertainty: A Reply to Jackson and Smith, The Journal of Philosophy 105:5, pp. 259-272. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2008105543 

How should deontological theories that prohibit actions of type K — such as intentionally killing an innocent person — deal with cases of uncertainty as to whether a particular action is of type K? Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, who raise this problem in their paper “Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty” (2006), focus on a case where a skier is about to cause the death of ten innocent people — we don’t know for sure whether on purpose or not — by causing an avalanche; and we can only save the people by shooting the skier. One possible deontological attitude towards such uncertainty is what Jackson and Smith call the threshold view, according to which whether or not the deontological constraint applies depends on our degree of (justified) certainty meets a given threshold. Jackson and Smith argue against the threshold view that it leads to implausible paradoxical moral dilemmas in a special kind of case. In this response, we show that the threshold view can avoid these implausible moral dilemmas, as long as the relevant deontological constraint is grounded in individualistic patient-based considerations, such as what an individual person is entitled to object to.

Link to the paper at Jstor: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20620097

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Selected Recent/Upcoming Presentations
(at anonymously refereed conferences unless marked "invited")

• “Responsible Conversational AI: Shifting Focus from Alignment to Gatekeepers,” accepted to the upcoming AISoLA 2026 track "Responsible and Trusted AI" (Kos) October 27-30.

• "Protecting the Autonomy of Young Chatbot Users’ Normative Stances," accepted to the upcoming AI Ethics for Children and Adolescents Workshop (University of Salzburg.) 22-23.10.2026

• "Critical Thinking and AI," invited for the Ethics of AI in Education Workshop (LMU-Munich + Online) October 26 2026. >Registration form

• "Responsible Conversational AI: Shifting Focus from Alignment to Gatekeepers," accepted to the 2026 annual Israeli Conference on Philosophy of AI (The Technion, Haifa).

• "Autonomy-Impeding LLM Side-Effects and Critical Thinking Education," the 2026 annual European Seminars in Philosophy of Education (The American University of Paris).

• "AI-Assisted Maximization of Expected Value under Moral Uncertainty," the AISoLA 2025 track "Responsible and Trusted AI". 

• "The Overriding Purpose of Critical Thinking, from an Educational Perspective," the 2025 Israeli Philosophy Association (IPA) annual conference (Bar Ilan University, Israel) Click here for the handout 

• "Moral Education under Moral Uncertainty: Cultivating the Preparatory Virtues, the 2024 (50th) Association For Moral Education (AME) annual conference, NY (USA)

• “Non-Artificial Critical Thinking,” Educational Theory / Philosophy of Education (PES) Preconference workshop (2024), Utah (USA). 

• "Moral Education and Moral Uncertainty," Irish Philosophical Society Annual Conference on the theme of “Moral Development and Moral Failure” (Ireland)

• "Normatively Uncertain Educators Should Cultivate Preparatory Meta Virtues," the 2023 7th Aretai annual conference on Phronesis, Virtues and Meta-Virtues, Università di Genova

• “Character Education under Uncertain Political Perfectionism,” the 2023 Israeli Philosophy Association (IPA) annual conference (Ben-Gurion University, Israel)

• “Motivating Deliberation Rather Than Sartrean Radical Choice,” the 2023 John Dewey Society Conference, Chicago.

• "Critical Thinking, Thin Ideals, and Irreducibly Normative Deliberation,” the 2023 Philosophy of Education Society Conference, Chicago.

• "Respecting a Person's Strategies," the 2022 annual meeting of the Israeli Philosophical Association.

• "Manipulation, Autonomy, and Disrespecting Deliberative Projects" with Shlomo Cohen, the 2022 Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics. 

• “A Central Worry About Manipulation in Education" Symposium at the 2022 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, 2022. 

• "Educating under normative uncertainty", the joint conference of the North Eastern Philosophy Of Education Society and the John Dewey Society at the University of Vermont in Burlington, October 8-9, 2021. 

Contact me for my CV

Get in touch at Ron.Aboodi[YouKnowWhichSignComesHere]Mail.huji.ac.il