Peter Zuk

Peter Zuk wearing a suit with short-medium hair and a beard

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Humanities

Course(s):
This semester, I am teaching Introduction to Philosophy (PHIL 2300). It is a real joy to facilitate what is for many students their first sustained encounter with the subject. In the spring, I am excited to also be teaching Biomedical Ethics (PHIL 3319), one of the cornerstones of our department’s program in Medical Humanities.  

“I am interested in perennial philosophical questions like the foundations of ethics, the nature of the mind, and the meaning of humanity and humanism."

Tell us a little about your story, what brought you to UTA?
I did my graduate work in philosophy at Rice University in Houston, followed by a postdoc just across the road at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy in which I applied my philosophy background to NIH BRAIN Initiative-funded research on the ethics of emerging technologies. I then had a second postdoc at the Harvard Center for Bioethics funded by a BRAIN grant of my own, which allowed me deepen my understanding of novel neurotechnologies and the ethical, social, and conceptual questions they raise.

I am very pleased to now be arriving back in Texas and at UTA in particular. It has been clear to me from the start that UTA is a vibrant intellectual community, and an incredibly friendly one at that. I have a wonderful group of departmental colleagues who have already given me a truly warm welcome. The department’s multiple programs (Philosophy, Medical Humanities, and Classical Studies) afford a number of great activities in which to get involved. UTA’s university-level initiative on brain health also makes this an ideal place to continue the applied side of my work, which I expect to flourish through interactions with clinical and other researchers.

What are your academic and research interests?
I am interested in perennial philosophical questions like the foundations of ethics, the nature of the mind, and the meaning of humanity and humanism. I employ a partly historical approach to these questions, looking back to how debates about them have played out in the Western philosophical canon and beyond to help shed light on their contemporary manifestations.

These interests inform my applied work in technology ethics. This work has focused on technologies for neuromodulation (energetic stimulation of the brain), especially the use of deep brain stimulation in movement and psychiatric disorders and brain-implanted devices for vision restoration. I have also recently joined the interdisciplinary conversation about neurorights, such as a right to mental privacy, a right to cognitive liberty, and a right to mental integrity. I am interested in both how these rights apply in the context of neurotechnology development for medical and non-medical applications and how they might be extended to help us reflect on the role that more commonplace digital technologies have come to play in our individual and collective lives.

Any desired interdisciplinary collaborations?
Given the number of other CoLA faculty working on topics in and around technology ethics, I hope and expect that there will be a wealth of opportunities for collaboration with those in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. In addition, the university focus on brain health is an incredible opportunity to work with UTA neuroscientists, engineers, healthcare specialists, and others to wed technology development with philosophical reflection.

Any news releases or publications that you are featured in that you’d like to share?
My most recent piece, “Mental Integrity, Autonomy, and Fundamental Interests,” has just been published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (link: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2024/08/13/jme-2023-109732.long). It proposes a novel theory of mental integrity according to which existing autonomy-based theories can be subsumed within a broader interests-based framework, one that vindicates a right to mental integrity for the non-autonomous in addition to the autonomous. I intend this as a first step of a more comprehensive project articulating the conceptual foundations of neurorights.

Anything else you’d like to share?
I want to thank once again my colleagues in Philosophy & Humanities, as well as CoLA more broadly and the Division of Faculty Success, for such a warm welcome to UTA. It already feels like home. Go Mavs!


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