John Tasioulas (born 18 December 1964) is a Greek-Australian moral and legal philosopher. He is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI (

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

), and Professor of Ethics and Legal Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy,

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

.https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-09-11-inaugural-director-and-academic-team-appointed-new-institute-ethics-ai, 12 October 2020 He holds dual Australian and British citizenship.

Biography

John Tasioulas was born in Wollongong, New South Wales, in 1964. His parents, Konstantinos and Elpiniki Tasioulas, migrated to Australia from Dasyllio in the

Grevena Grevena ( el, Γρεβενά, ''Grevená'', , rup, Grebini) is a town and municipality in Western Macedonia, northern Greece, capital of the Grevena regional unit. The town's current population is 13,374 citizens (2011). It lies about from Ath ...

region of Greece. He was a student at

Northcote High School , motto_translation = Let us follow the better path , established = 1926 , address = 19-25 St. Georges Road , city = Northcote , state = Victoria , postcode ...

and

Melbourne High School Melbourne High School is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1905, the school caters for boys from Year 9 ...

. He completed undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Law at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

and was the 1989 Rhodes Scholar for Victoria. Studying at

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

, he received a doctorate (D.Phil in Philosophy) from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

for a thesis on moral relativism which was supervised by

Joseph Raz Joseph Raz (; he, יוסף רז; born Zaltsman; 21 March 19392 May 2022) was an Israeli legal, moral and political philosopher. He was an advocate of legal positivism and is known for his conception of perfectionist liberalism. Raz spent mos ...

. Tasioulas was a lecturer in jurisprudence at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

(1992–1998), Reader in Moral and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford where he was a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College (1998–2010), Quain Professor of Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Laws,

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

(2011–2014), and the inaugural Yeoh Professor of Politics, Philosophy and Law at

The Dickson Poon School of Law The Dickson Poon School of Law is the law school of King's College London, itself part of the federal University of London, and serves as one of the nine schools of study within the college. It is situated on the Strand in the East Wing of Some ...

, King's College London and Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy, and Law (2014-2020). He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a Distinguished Research Fellow of the

Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics The Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford was founded in 2001. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division. The faculty is located next to Somerville College on Woodstock Road. As of 2020, it is ranked 1st in the UK and 2nd in the English-s ...

, and a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

. He has been a Fellow at the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and a Visiting Professor of Law at the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dis ...

. He delivered the 'Or 'Emet Lecture at

Osgoode Hall Law School Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The law school is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the '' Osgoode Hall L ...

(2011), the Natural Law Lecture at

Notre Dame Law School Notre Dame Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Notre Dame. Established in 1869, it is the oldest continuously operating Catholic law school in the United States. ND Law is ranked 22nd among the nation's "Top 1 ...

(2012), and the Van Hasselt Lecture at Delft University of Technology (2016).

Academic expertise

Tasioulas works in moral, legal and political philosophy. He has advanced a version of the communicative theory of punishment, according to which the overarching point of punishment is the communication of censure to wrong-doers. His version of the theory is distinctive in making room for the value of mercy alongside that of retributive justice. In the philosophy of human rights, Tasioulas has argued for an orthodox understanding of such rights, according to which they are moral rights possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their humanity. This contrasts with a more recent view that characterizes human rights in terms of some political role(s), such as being triggers for international intervention or benchmarks of internal legitimacy. According to Tasioulas, human rights have a foundation both in a plurality of human interests and in equal

human dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inaliena ...

. Among other writings in this area, Tasioulas is the author of two reports on minimum core obligations, and their bearing on the human

right to health The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the U ...

, for the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

. He has written on a range of other topics including moral relativism, games and play, the ethics of robots and Artificial Intelligence, and the philosophy of international law. His co-edited volume, ''The Philosophy of International Law'' (OUP, 2010), is a central text in the field. Tasioulas was a vocal supporter of

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC ...

Selected works

* �
In Defence of Relative Normativity: Communitarian Values and the Nicaragua Case
��, (1996) 16 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, pp. 85–128. * �
Relativism, Realism and Reflection
��, (1998) 41 Inquiry, pp .377–410. *
Mercy
, (2003) CIII Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 101–132.
Punishment and Repentance
, Philosophy 81 (2006), pp. 279–322. *
Games and the Good
, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume LXXX (2006), pp. 237–264 *
The Moral Reality of Human Rights
, in T. Pogge (ed.), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? (OUP, 2007), pp. 75–101. * S. Besson and J. Tasioulas (eds.), ''The Philosophy of International Law'' (OUP, 2010) * �
Taking Rights out of Human Rights
��, Ethics 120 (July 2010), pp. 647–678. *
Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights
, Current Legal Problems 65 (2012), pp. 1–30. *
Human Rights, Legitimacy, and International Law
, American Journal of Jurisprudence 58 (2013), pp. 1–25. *
Minimum Core Obligations: Human Rights in the Here and Now
, World Bank (2017). *
The Minimum Core of the Human Right to Health
, World Bank (2017). *
First Steps Towards an Ethics of Robots and Artificial Intelligence
Journal of Practical Ethics 7 (2019), pp. 61–95.

References

External links

*
Is Dignity the Foundation of Human Rights
, 'Or Emet Lecture, 10 March 2011 video *
Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights
, Inaugural Lecture, University College London, 19 January 2012 video *

, Philosophy Bites Interview, 12 October 2013 podcast *
Humanity's Debate
, Neos Kosmos, 2 December 2013, profile article *
Professor John Tasioulas joins King's
, 8 July 2014 *
Political Philosophy in the World: A Right to be Angry
, The Philosopher's Zone, 1 May 2016 *
Big Questions: Philosopher John Tasioulas on Justice, Privilege, and What People Get Wrong About Human Rights
, Rights Info, 16 February 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tasioulas, John 1964 births Living people People educated at Melbourne High School Melbourne Law School alumni Australian Rhodes Scholars Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Philosophers of law Jurisprudence academics Australian philosophers Artificial intelligence ethicists Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Academics of University College London Academics of King's College London Australian people of Greek descent People from Wollongong Academics of the University of Glasgow Legal scholars of the University of Oxford Radcliffe fellows