Keith Hyams

I joined the Department of Politics and International Relations at Warwick in 2014, where I lead the Interdisciplinary Ethics Research Group's work on Ethics in Climate and Development, and on Future Politics.

My research interests are animated by three questions:

How can we achieve adaptation to climate change, and international development more generally, in a way that is both ethical and equitable?

How can emerging technologies like AI and biotech be governed in a way that maximises the opportunities that they present while minimising their risks?

What can we learn from psychology about how to build political and economic institutions that can better cope with the environmental and technological challenges that humanity faces?

My previous research focused on the philosophy of equality and fairness, particularly in respect of distributions of risk. I have also published on the ethics of consent, on justice and sustainability, and on political justification. In 2015 I was awarded the Inaugural Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy for my work on equality and risk.

I hold a DPhil in philosophy (Oxford) supervised by GA Cohen, a BPhil in philosophy (Oxford), and a BA in philosophy and psychology (Oxford). I have been a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto (2009-10), a Visiting Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, University of Louvain (2012), and a Visiting Academic in the Department of Philosophy, University of Oxford (2012-14). Before joining Warwick, I was a Lecturer at the Universities of Exeter and Reading.

I have collaborated with and advised a broad range of NGOs, businesses, government bodies and grassroots organisations, both in the UK and in a number of low income countries. In 2020 I was awarded the International Society for Environmental Ethics Andrew Light Prize for Public Philosophy. I am a member of the Expert Advisory Group on Safeguarding for the UK Collaborative on Development Research and have been an ethics advisor to the Cabinet Office, and to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, on the ethics of AI and data. My research has been cited by MPs, including the then leader of the opposition. Prior to becoming an academic, I lived in and worked with social movements in various countries, including Rwanda, Guyana, India, Peru, Nigeria, Cuba, Mexico, West Papua, and the Middle East.