Research
My research examines the logical foundations of AI ethics, the applications of modal logic across therapeutic, legal, and ethical contexts, and the philosophy of international criminal justice. A unifying concern runs through this work: what kinds of judgment require embodied human beings, and what can be delegated to formal systems?
AI Ethics and the Limits of Computation
Recent failures of AI therapy chatbots, including cases of serious harm to vulnerable users, raise fundamental questions about what computational systems can and cannot do. My work argues that these failures are not engineering problems awaiting technical solutions, but reflect structural limitations in how AI systems process information. Drawing on the distinction between propositional and modal logic, I show that AI excels at reasoning within fixed possibility spaces but cannot transform those spaces in the way that genuine therapeutic intervention, ethical judgment, and legal reasoning require.
This research connects my earlier work on drone warfare ethics and intelligence ethics to current debates about AI in healthcare, law, and human services. The question is not whether AI will become more sophisticated, but whether sophistication addresses the right problem.
Key publications:
Modal Integrative Psychotherapy: A Logical Integration of Psychotherapy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
The Ethics of Drone Warfare. Philosophy and Society, 2017
The Epistemology of Intelligence Ethics. In Ethics and the Future of Spying (Routledge, 2015)
Modal Logic and Philosophical Practice
Modal logic concerns not what is true, but what is possible and necessary. My research applies this framework to understand how therapeutic intervention works: not by changing beliefs within a fixed world, but by transforming the space of possibilities available to a person. This led to the development of Modal Integrative Psychotherapy (MIP), a methodology now taught internationally through the Institute for Practical Humanities.
The modal approach has implications beyond therapy. In philosophical practice, it provides a framework for understanding how reflection can produce genuine change rather than mere adjustment. In ethics, it illuminates how moral transformation differs from behavioral compliance. The forthcoming book with Anthem Press extends this framework to questions about the good life and strategic decision-making.
Key publications:
Philosophy of Life: Modal Logic, Psychotherapy and the Good Life (Anthem Press, 2026, forthcoming)
Modal Logic in Integrative Philosophical Practice. Philosophy and Society, 2023
The Modal World of Integrative Philosophical Counseling I & II. Synthesis Philosophica, 2020-2021
The Methodology of Philosophical Practice: Eclecticism and/or Integrativeness? Philosophia, 2016
Philosophy of Psychiatry
Contemporary psychiatry faces a crisis of foundations. The DSM framework treats mental disorders as discrete categories to be diagnosed and treated, yet clinical experience and philosophical analysis suggest that many conditions, particularly personality disorders, are better understood as moral and existential problems rather than medical ones. My work develops this critique through engagement with Lacanian psychoanalysis, virtue ethics, and phenomenology.
Recent papers examine narcissism as moral incompetence rather than personality disorder, the philosophy of trauma and its misuse in contemporary culture, and the concept of normalcy in both clinical and philosophical contexts. This research informs my clinical practice and the training programs offered through the Institute for Practical Humanities.
Key publications:
Narcissism as a Moral Incompetence. Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, 2023
Philosophy as Therapy in a Culture of Personality Disorders. Jahr: European Journal of Bioethics, 2024
Notes on the Philosophy of Trauma. Theoria, 2025
The Intentionality of Madness: Checking the Cognitive Issues in DSM-Based Diagnosis. Philosophy and Society, 2014
Jurisprudence and International Criminal Law
My early work addressed the philosophy of punishment and the theory of restorative justice. This evolved into sustained engagement with the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, examining whether legal mechanisms can achieve reconciliation or whether they inevitably serve political functions that compromise justice. The question of what law can and cannot accomplish connects to my broader interest in the limits of formal systems when applied to human affairs.
Recent work returns to foundational questions about retribution, the emotional sources of law, and the relationship between legal and moral judgment. The connection to AI ethics is direct: if legal reasoning requires capacities that formal systems lack, then the deployment of AI in legal contexts raises the same structural concerns as its deployment in therapy.
Key publications:
The UN International Criminal Tribunals: Transition Without Justice? (Routledge, 2015, with K. Bachmann)
Transitional Justice in Troubled Societies (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018, edited with K. Bachmann and I. Lybashenko)
Punishment and Restorative Crime-Handling: A Social Theory of Trust (Ashgate, 1995)
Hegelian Retribution Re-Examined. Philosophical Inquiry, 1996
Current Projects
What AI Cannot Do: Modal Logic, Philosophical Practice, and the Limits of Computational Approaches to Human Mental Life (paper under review)
Philosophy of Life: Modal Logic, Psychotherapy and the Good Life (book in preparation for Anthem Press)
AI as a Quasi-Psychological Faculty: Implications for Philosophy of Mind (paper in preparation)
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