Carl Benn
Biographic Data
| ID | 454828 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carl Benn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carl |
| FAMILY NAME | Benn |
| SIGNATURE | BENN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Van Leer Jerusalem Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7072-2701 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Moral Uncanny Valley
Masahito Mori hypothesised that robots that look somewhat but not quite enough like humans are likely to arouse a sense of unease and discomfort. This hugely influential design hypothesis about robot appearance has been dubbed the ‘Uncanny Valley.’ I argue that there is a more general formulation of this principle that can be extended beyond the aesthetic domain of robot appearance. Specifically, I propose that there exists a Moral Uncanny Valley…
What’s Wrong with Automated Influence
Automated Influence is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to collect, integrate, and analyse people’s data in order to deliver targeted interventions that shape their behaviour. We consider three central objections against Automated Influence, focusing on privacy, exploitation, and manipulation, showing in each case how a structural version of that objection has more purchase than its interactional counterpart. By rejecting the interactional…
Supererogation and sequence
Morally supererogatory acts are those that go above and beyond the call of duty. More specifically: they are acts that, on any individual occasion, are good to do and also both permissible to do and permissible to refrain from doing. We challenge the way in which discussions of supererogation typically consider our choices and actions in isolation. Instead we consider sequences of supererogatory acts and omissions and show that some such sequence…
Solemn Words and Foundational Documents: An Annotated Discussion of Indigenous-Crown Treaties in Canada, 1752–1923
A Mohawk Memoir from the War of 1812: John Norton - Teyoninhokarawen
In 1815-16, Mohawk chief John Norton wrote one of the most fascinating and detailed memoirs from the War of 1812. In this book, Carl Benn’s comprehensive introductions and annotations enable readers to explore that important indigenous narrative, its contexts, and its related histories fully.
Intentions, Motives and Supererogation
The Enemy of the Good: Supererogation and Requiring Perfection
Moral theories that demand that we do what is morally best leave no room for the supererogatory. One argument against such theories is that they fail to realize the value of autonomy: supererogatory acts allow for the exercise of autonomy because their omissions are not accompanied by any threats of sanctions, unlike obligatory ones. While this argument fails, I use the distinction it draws – between omissions of obligatory and supererogatory act…
Supererogation, optionality and cost
Over-Demandingness Objections and Supererogation
There are many points of disagreement in ethical theory and none more prominent than exactly how extensive our obligations are. In order to give succinct examples to illustrate this argument, the author focusses on maximising act consequentialism. He argues that only the final objection-the Confinement Objection-articulates the relationship between supererogation and the demands of a moral theory. Both supererogation and over-demandingness object…
William J. Campbell. Speculators in Empire: Iroquoia and the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix
Fort Stanwix today is a fascinating National Parks Service reconstruction of an eighteenth-century stronghold in upstate New York, with interpretation focused mainly on the American War of Independence. The original post guarded the strategic portage between the Oswego drainage and the Hudson/Mohawk watersheds, which gave Anglo-America access to Lake Ontario before Britain gained control of the St. Lawrence with the fall of New France in 1763. Lo…
Missed Opportunities and the Problem of Mohawk Chief John Norton's Cherokee Ancestry
John Norton (1770-1831?) was one of the most important Iroquois leaders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the author of a thousand-page manuscript on First Nations history, a journey he made to the Cherokee country, and his adventures in the War of 1812. However, that text and his other writings have received comparatively little attention from scholars despite the rich opportunities these documents hold for exploring the …
The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series, Volume 9: September 1791-February 1792
BOOK REVIEWS The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series, Volume 9: September 1791-February 1792. Edited by Mark A. Mastromarino and Jack D. Warren. Philander D. Chase, Series Editor. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Pp. xxxiv, 672. $62.50.) The Presidential Series of Papers of George Washington form one section of partially completed seven-unit, forty-six-volume compilation of documents produced by, or sent to, Amer…
Indian Policy in the Age of Jefferson
Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. By Anthony F. C. Wallace. (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 394. Documents, illustrations, maps. $29.95) Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. By Laurence M. Hauptman. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Pp. xix, 304. Illustrations, maps, tables. $34.95.) Seeds of Empire: The Revolutionary Co…
The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784-1860
Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812
Supererogation, optionality and cost
Missed Opportunities and the Problem of Mohawk Chief John Norton's Cherokee Ancestry
John Norton (1770-1831?) was one of the most important Iroquois leaders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the author of a thousand-page manuscript on First Nations history, a journey he made to the Cherokee country, and his adventures in the War of 1812. However, that text and his other writings have received comparatively little attention from scholars despite the rich opportunities these documents hold for exploring the …
The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784-1860
Indian Policy in the Age of Jefferson
Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans. By Anthony F. C. Wallace. (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 394. Documents, illustrations, maps. $29.95) Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. By Laurence M. Hauptman. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Pp. xix, 304. Illustrations, maps, tables. $34.95.) Seeds of Empire: The Revolutionary Co…
The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784-1860
Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812
The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series, Volume 9: September 1791-February 1792
BOOK REVIEWS The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series, Volume 9: September 1791-February 1792. Edited by Mark A. Mastromarino and Jack D. Warren. Philander D. Chase, Series Editor. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Pp. xxxiv, 672. $62.50.) The Presidential Series of Papers of George Washington form one section of partially completed seven-unit, forty-six-volume compilation of documents produced by, or sent to, Amer…
Missed Opportunities and the Problem of Mohawk Chief John Norton's Cherokee Ancestry
John Norton (1770-1831?) was one of the most important Iroquois leaders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the author of a thousand-page manuscript on First Nations history, a journey he made to the Cherokee country, and his adventures in the War of 1812. However, that text and his other writings have received comparatively little attention from scholars despite the rich opportunities these documents hold for exploring the …
William J. Campbell. Speculators in Empire: Iroquoia and the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix
Fort Stanwix today is a fascinating National Parks Service reconstruction of an eighteenth-century stronghold in upstate New York, with interpretation focused mainly on the American War of Independence. The original post guarded the strategic portage between the Oswego drainage and the Hudson/Mohawk watersheds, which gave Anglo-America access to Lake Ontario before Britain gained control of the St. Lawrence with the fall of New France in 1763. Lo…
Over-Demandingness Objections and Supererogation
There are many points of disagreement in ethical theory and none more prominent than exactly how extensive our obligations are. In order to give succinct examples to illustrate this argument, the author focusses on maximising act consequentialism. He argues that only the final objection-the Confinement Objection-articulates the relationship between supererogation and the demands of a moral theory. Both supererogation and over-demandingness object…
Supererogation, optionality and cost
A Mohawk Memoir from the War of 1812: John Norton - Teyoninhokarawen
In 1815-16, Mohawk chief John Norton wrote one of the most fascinating and detailed memoirs from the War of 1812. In this book, Carl Benn’s comprehensive introductions and annotations enable readers to explore that important indigenous narrative, its contexts, and its related histories fully.
Intentions, Motives and Supererogation
The Enemy of the Good: Supererogation and Requiring Perfection
Moral theories that demand that we do what is morally best leave no room for the supererogatory. One argument against such theories is that they fail to realize the value of autonomy: supererogatory acts allow for the exercise of autonomy because their omissions are not accompanied by any threats of sanctions, unlike obligatory ones. While this argument fails, I use the distinction it draws – between omissions of obligatory and supererogatory act…
Solemn Words and Foundational Documents: An Annotated Discussion of Indigenous-Crown Treaties in Canada, 1752–1923
Supererogation and sequence
Morally supererogatory acts are those that go above and beyond the call of duty. More specifically: they are acts that, on any individual occasion, are good to do and also both permissible to do and permissible to refrain from doing. We challenge the way in which discussions of supererogation typically consider our choices and actions in isolation. Instead we consider sequences of supererogatory acts and omissions and show that some such sequence…
What’s Wrong with Automated Influence
Automated Influence is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to collect, integrate, and analyse people’s data in order to deliver targeted interventions that shape their behaviour. We consider three central objections against Automated Influence, focusing on privacy, exploitation, and manipulation, showing in each case how a structural version of that objection has more purchase than its interactional counterpart. By rejecting the interactional…
The Moral Uncanny Valley
Masahito Mori hypothesised that robots that look somewhat but not quite enough like humans are likely to arouse a sense of unease and discomfort. This hugely influential design hypothesis about robot appearance has been dubbed the ‘Uncanny Valley.’ I argue that there is a more general formulation of this principle that can be extended beyond the aesthetic domain of robot appearance. Specifically, I propose that there exists a Moral Uncanny Valley…
Political science (11 works) · Law (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · History (6 works) · Sociology (5 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (3 works) · Art history (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Free Will and Agency (3 works)