Developing Logical Tools to Approach Ethical Choices

This text is from the printed program for the 2024 Faculty & Staff Convocation, where on September 18, John Horty will be officially honored as a Distinguished University Professor.

Philosophy Professor John Horty is one of his discipline’s leading thinkers in the field of logic, pioneering its applications in artificial intelligence, ethics and law.

In his work, he has developed logical tools to approach ethical choices, understanding how multiple reasons that come together might influence what choice individuals—or courts or machine learning algorithms—should make.

“As a scholar of logic, ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of law, Dr. Horty has made a meaningful difference in the conversations in those areas of philosophical concern,” says Stephanie Shonekan, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. “He has translated this experience to emerging research in artificial intelligence, becoming a leading—perhaps the leading—philosophical expert on AI and its ethical consequences for individuals and society.”

Horty earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and classics from Oberlin College, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. He came to Maryland in 1990 and holds affiliate appointments in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and the Department of Computer Science. He served as chair of philosophy from 2009 to 2012.

Horty has authored four books, including “Reasons as Defaults” and “The Logic of Precedent: Constraint, Freedom, and Common Law Reasoning,” (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press), as well as papers on a variety of topics in logic, philosophy, law and computer science.

His work has been supported by three fellowships from the National Endowment for Humanities and several grants from the National Science Foundation, by visiting fellowships at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies and the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and more recently, by a Humboldt Research Award.

“His scholarship has shaped the area of philosophy in which he works, and it has also had very significant influence outside of philosophy, both on legal scholarship and in real-world applications,” says Sarah B. Lawsky, Vice Dean at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law. “He is, in my view, the single most important and influential scholar working at the intersection of logic and law.”