Philip J. Nickel

My research focuses on philosophical aspects of our reliance on other humans and technologies.

Since 2019, I have been a research fellow in the project ESDiT (Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies). My research in the project concerns the harms and challenges of moral uncertainty in relation to new technologies.

In 2025, I began the project NAP4DIVE exploring ethical aspects of using AI and other technologies to reduce the need for animal research, funded by the European Union as part of a large consortium.

From 2017-2023, I participated in a multi-year interdisciplinary project in which we reconsidered the concepts of trust and consent in mobile health care, entitled Mobile Support Systems for Behavior Change. In 2022 and 2023, I led this project during its final phase.

In 2013-2014, I led the project Medical Trust Beyond Clinical Walls researching trust in web-based telecare systems.

My expertise in applied ethics and ethics governance concerns the ethics of digital health, artificial intelligence in health care, and risk assessment. I am a member of the Center for Ethics and Health (CEG).

Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, TU Eindhoven

Journal Articles for Download:

Trust in ICT-enabled medical self-management: the case of diabetes. Information Technology & People. Forthcoming.

The prospect of artificial intelligence supported ethics review. Ethics & Human Research 46, 6 (2024): 25-28.

Justice and Empowerment Through Digital Health: Ethical Challenges and Opportunities. With Iris Loosman, Lily Frank, and Anna Vinnikova. Digital Society 2 (2023).

Towards a Design Toolkit of Informed Consent Models Across Fields: A Systematic Review. With lead author Iris Loosman. Science and Engineering Ethics 28 (2022).

Trust in Medical Artificial Intelligence: A Discretionary Account. Ethics and Information Technology 24 (2022).

Moral Uncertainty in Technomoral Change: Bridging the Explanatory Gap. With Olya Kudina & Ibo van de Poel. Perspectives on Science 30, 2 (2022).

Disruptive Innovation and Moral Uncertainty. NanoEthics: Studies of New and Emerging Technologies 14, 3 (2020): 259-269.

Sound Trust and the Ethics of Telecare With Sander Voerman, ms version, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (2017), doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhw035 [Final Version at: http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/12/07/jmp.jhw035]

Freedom through skepticism [Dutch version published as "Vrijheid door scepticisme" in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte (2016)]

On Testimony and Transmission (with J. Adam Carter, ms version), Episteme (2014)

Artificial Speech and its Authors, Minds and Machines (2013)

Testimonial Entitlement, Norms of Assertion, and Privacy, Episteme (2013)

Trust and Testimony, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2012)

Voluntary Belief on a Reasonable Basis, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2010)

Book Chapters for Download:

Transparency and trust in behaviour change technologies (ms version). In J. Anderson, L. Frank, & A. Spahn, eds. The Ethics of Behaviour Change Technologies: Beyond Nudging and Persuasion. New York: Bloomsbury Academic (2025): 105-120.

A Pluralistic model of technology-driven value change. In S. Alpsancar, A. Friedrich, P. Gehring, A. Kaminski, & A. Nordmann, eds. Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie 10 Jahrgang 2024. Der Sog des Neuen und der Schock des Alten (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2025): 39-58.

Trust in Engineering (ms version) In D.P. Michelfelder & N. Doorn, eds., Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Engineering (Routledge, 2021): 494-505.

Trust in Medicine (with Lily Frank, ms version) In J. Simon, ed., Routledge Handbook of Trust and Philosophy (Routledge, 2020): 367–377.

The ethics of uncertainty for data subjects. In J. Krutzinna & L. Floridi, eds., The Ethics of Medical Data Donation (Springer, 2019).

Assurance views of testimony. In M. Fricker, P.J. Graham, D. Henderson & N.J.L.L. Pedersen, eds., Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology (Routledge, 2019): 96–102.

Being pragmatic about trust (ms version) P. Faulkner & T. Simpson, eds. The Philosophy of Trust. (Oxford University Press, 2017): 195-213.

Design for the Value of Trust (ms version). J. van den Hoven, I. van de Poel, and P. Vermaas, eds., Handbook of Ethics and Values in Technological Design. (Springer, 2014).

Trust in Technological Systems (ms version). M.J. de Vries, S.O. Hansson, and A.W.M. Meijers, eds., Norms in technology: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, Vol. 9 (Springer, 2013): 223-237.

Risk and Trust (with K. Vaesen, ms version), In S. Roeser et al., Handbook of Risk Theory (Springer, 2012).

Horror and the Idea of Everyday Life: On Skeptical Threats in Psycho and The Birds (ms version). T. Fahy, ed., The Philosophy of Horror: Philosophical and Cultural Interpretations of the Genre (University of Kentucky Press, 2010): 14-32.

Other Work:

Ownership and Commodifiability of Synthetic and Natural Organs [Dutch version published as "Eigendom en Verhandelbaarheid van Synthetische en Natuurlijke Organen" in Podium voor Bioethiek (2017).]