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- Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy-
- Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy-
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Mathias Risse
Research
Indigenous Thought
Technology
Trade Justice
Human Rights
Global Justice
Political and Moral Philosophy
Artificial Intelligence
Overall, Risse is interested in the “big questions” of political and moral philosophy. He approaches them as a philosopher trained in the analytical tradition but also with a keen interest in history, social sciences, and public policy. Risse’s research explores normative questions that arise in an era of increasing political and economic interconnectedness. His book On Global Justice makes a balanced proposal for how to think about justice at the global level (“grounds-of-justice” approach), and thinks through the implications for a range of topics, from immigration and climate change to human rights and future generations. On Global Justice develops a view called pluralist internationalism, according to which there are different grounds of justice that individuals may or may not share, such that those who share such a ground are people to whom the distribution of certain goods must be justifiable. What is most distinctly novel about all this is that among these grounds of justice is shared ownership of the earth. His book Global Political Philosophy is an introduction to political philosophy from a global standpoint.
On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal, jointly written with Gabriel Wollner at Bayreuth, offers a novel account of trade justice that makes ideas about exploitation central. The book gives pride of place to philosophical ideas about global justice (and in this sense further develops certain themes from On Global Justice) while also contributing to moral disputes about practical questions. On Justice: Philosophy, History, Foundations is a large-scale investigation of the concept of justice and of what it is that philosophers do when they articulate views about justice. The perennial quest for justice is about making sure each individual has an appropriate place in what our uniquely human capacities permit us to build, produce and maintain and is respected appropriately for her capacities to hold such a place to begin with. The book first investigates the role of political philosophers and explores how to think about the global context where philosophical inquiry occurs. Secondly, it offers a quasi-historical narrative about how the notion of distributive justice identifies a genuinely human concern that arises independently of cultural context and has developed into the one we should take ourselves as having now. Thirdly, the book offers an analytical investigation of the core terms of this view, such as stringency, moral value, ground and duties of justice.
​Political Theory of the Digital Age: Where Artificial Intelligence Might Take Us uses as its starting point the observation that, with the rise of far-reaching technological innovation, from artificial intelligence to Big Data, human life is increasingly unfolding in digital lifeworlds. While such developments have made unprecedented changes to the ways we live, our political practices have failed to evolve at pace with these profound changes. This book establishes a foundation for the philosophy of technology, allowing us to investigate how the digital century might alter our most basic political practices and ideas. Political Theory of the Digital Age offers a systemic way of evaluating the effect of AI, allowing us to anticipate and understand how technological developments impact our political lives – before it's too late.
Risse has published extensively in top academic journals (such as Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Journal of Political Philosophy, Nous, European Journal of Philosophy, etc.) on questions of political philosophy, but also on ethics, decision theory and social choice theory. Some of his earlier work was distinctive mathematical in nature, exploring different models of collective decision making and their philosophical implications. In addition, he has a long-standing research interest in German 19th century philosophy, especially the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (whom he considers a critical interlocutor on questions he writes on). While among philosophers co-authored work is much rarer than in the social sciences, Risse tries to do co-authored work wherever possible since much more can get done that way. His co-authors include Michael Blake, Matthias Hild, Richard Jeffrey, Malgorzata Kurjanska, Steven Livingston, Marco Meyer, John W. Meyer and Gabriel Wollner.
In recent times, in addition to his focus on ethical and human-rights-related challenges that come out of technological innovation, especially related to artificial intelligence, he has also focused on indigenous philosophies around the world, but especially in the United States. The connection between these topics is closer than it might appear. Political Theory of the Digital Age investigates how the development of Artificial Intelligence engages and changes traditional debates political thinkers have been having. We can then ask what else, and whose voices, are also missing from the kind of debates we need to have in the 21st century with its massive ecological crisis and its enormous amount of technological innovation. And this question leads straight to indigenous thought.